Assisted suicide cases in Switzerland have grown steadily over the past decade to almost 300 in 2009, its Federal Statistics Office reported this week.

The Australian state of Victoria, the first in the world to pass a law on assisted reproduction, may pass retrospective legislation to give all donor-conceived people access to information about their donors.

It is no secret that the Vatican and most researchers on human embryonic stem cells do not see eye to eye on much more than the time of day. So the real question about why the Third International Congress on Responsible Stem Cell Research, scheduled for 25–28 April, was organised at all, rather than why it was abruptly cancelled this week.

There are few areas in bioethics which require more philosophical subtlety than determining when death happens in organ donation. But an NPR feature this week on the controversial problem of donation after cardiac death has highlighted an area which is even more controversial.

Former US vice president Dick Cheney received a new heart recently. The operation sparked speculation that he had jumped the queue.

Oregon’s public health division has released statistics on deaths under its physician-assisted suicide (PAS) legislation for 2011.

A parliamentary committee in Quebec has recommended the legalisation of euthanasia with strict safeguards. Its report, “Mourir dans la dignité” (Dying With Dignity), contends that dying is a part of life and since medical assistance is used to prolong life, it should also be used in extreme cases to end it.

One of the first doctors to support Oregon’s controversial assisted-suicide law has used it to end his own life.

The US Supreme Court grappled this week for the first time with “posthumous conception”.

A British woman who had a child by surrogacy has sued for paid maternity leave. The woman, who remains anonymous, alleging sex and maternity discrimination, has taken her case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to decide whether the British laws are consistent with European Union directives.

A kidney transplant patient’s own stem cells could replace anti-rejection medications, a new study suggests.

Abortion is back on the front pages of British papers with the news that abortion providers are routinely falsifying paperwork. The Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, was outraged by revelations in the Telegraph, and vowed to crack down on clinics which were operating outside the law.

Some recent research in psychology suggests that when people disbelieve in free will, they are more inclined to act in antisocial ways. The Neuroskeptic blog has highlighted the work of a violent dissenter from this point of view.

A Michigan State University anthropologist from Bangladesh has published the first in-depth study describing the often horrific experiences of poor people who were victims of organ trafficking.

American neuroscientists should be worried about how their research will be used by the US military, according to an article in PLoS Biology (March 20) by bioethicists Jonathan Moreno and Michael N. Tennison.

Functional magnetic resonance image scans have been used as lie detectors which have been used in murder trials as well as testing whether conservatives are psychopaths or liberals are more broad-minded. Yet recent studies suggest that the scans are only giving insight into a very small part of the brain.