Bioedge
Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

Steven PinkerIn the minds of most people, human dignity must surely be a cornerstone of bioethics. But as BioEdge has often pointed out, most bioethicists feel differently about it. In fact, low-intensity academic warfare is sputtering along over a 2003 proposal by bioethicist Ruth Macklin that "human dignity" (scare quotes de rigeur) should be junked. It is either too vague to be meaningful or it simply restates other notions, such as respect for autonomy or capacity for rational thought.… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

The war on terror has thrown up another bioethical conundrum: forcible drugging of foreigners deported from the United States. The Washington Post has learned that hundreds of deportees were injected with dangerous psychotropic drugs to keep them docile until they are delivered to their home country between 2003 and 2007. "Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes," says the Post. Federal officials have described the… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

News that American scientists had created a genetically modified human embryo leaked out over the weekend. Scientists at Cornell University in New York created one from a left-over IVF embryo last year to study how early cells and diseases develop. They presented their findings long ago to a meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. However the media only caught wind of it when it was mentioned in a report from the UK’s fertility regulator, the Human… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

Once again, bioethics is on centre stage in the British Parliament as the House of Commons debates a revision of its fertility legislation. This contains a large number of highly controversial proposals. The three best-known would allow the human-animal hybrids for research and the use of saviour siblings in IVF treatment and would abolish the need for a father in eligibility for IVF treatment. On these three government MPs will be allowed a conscience vote. However, there are… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

A disturbing profile in the Guardian of the one leading lights of the right-to-die movement, the Rev. George Exoo, shows that there is a hierarchy of repute even amongst fans of assisted suicide. Exoo is a "a gay, liberal, libertarian Unitarian preacher, cultured, funny, charming", says Jon Ronson, who has just made a documentary about him for British television. He is also an embarrassment for his colleagues.

Exoo surfaced in the media when he helped a… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

The Irish Council for Bioethics recently recommended by a unanimous vote that frozen IVF embryos could be destroyed for research to generate human embryonic stem cell lines. Now a group of Irish academics and scientists have written an open letter criticising its proposals in order to dispel the impression that they represent the consensus of the academic and biomedical communities. They say that human beings have a unique moral status, regardless of their stage of development

"The… [+]


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Thu, 15 May 2008 | 0 Comment | Email this article Email | Full story

One of the most depressing films you could possibly see is On the Beach, a 1959 Hollywood melodrama with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner about Melbourne after World War III (which happened in 1964). Fallout from the Northern Hemisphere, where everyone has dropped off the perch, is drifting slowly over Australia, blanketing the continent with death. The enlightened government of the day distributes free suicide pills and injections so that no one need suffer the agony of terminal radiation… [+]


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MediaWatch
The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours. We're not far away from the world of Minority Report.
Washington Post | 13 Apr 2008
Violence on the Brain. A stinging critique of neuro-jurisprudence.
Social Science Research Network | April 2008
The neuroscience delusion. Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it is wrong about humanity, says Raymond Tallis.
London Times | 9 Apr 2008
Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks.. A eugenic future of "designer babies" is not a good idea.
Washington Post | 15 Apr 2008
The Curious Lives of Surrogates. America, not India, is the world's Mecca for surrogacy.
Newsweek | 7 April 2008
Egg Donors and Human Trafficking. Why doesn't the US treat the market in women's eggs as human exploitation?
First Things | 1 April 2008
Hyposkillia: deficiency of clinical skills. Young doctors know how to order tests, all right. How about other stuff?
Texas Heart Institute Journal | 2005
Girl Power. Coercion, money, and the rise of reproductive freedom.
Slate | 5 March 2008
For the Love of the Game. Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, the Mitchell Report, and the adulteration of American sports.
The New Republic | 26 March 2008
Satisfied customers. William Saletan on abortion and your right to accurate sex selection.
Slate | 25 Feb 2008
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