Abstract

The authors of the three essays featured in this focus challenge assumptions that are central to the official Catholic teachings on sexual ethics. Elizabeth Antus and Megan McCabe do so by taking on topics that have not received much attention from the magisterium. Cristina Traina urges us to think differently about the way we usually frame the moral issue of abortion. Although they address different moral problems, I argue in this introduction that they highlight common themes—social sin, interruption, and solidarity—share methodological commitments to using empirical data and to valuing human experiences, and push us to imagine a sexual ethic grounded in a just vision of human sexual flourishing.