The “slippery slope” is often derided as a logical fallacy. But when one of the leading advocacy groups for euthanasia in Belgium posts an article entitled “Euthanasie: tijd voor de volgende stap, Euthanasia, time for the next step”, it’s hard not to think that it may not be so illogical after all.

The 23,000 members of the Massachusetts Medical Society have voted against physician-assisted suicide. Its House of Delegates voted by a large majority for maintaining a policy the Society has had since 1996.

The recent past of Korea’s cloning research is best described as dubious. Disgraced Seoul University professor Hwang Woo-suk claimed in 2004 to have cloned human embryos and developed stem-cell lines, but most of that work was exposed as fraud in 2005. Now another scientist, Park Se-pill, of Jeju National University, is aiming to clone human embryonic stem cells by 2015, a breakthrough that scientists still have not yet achieved.

In a story that contrasts with the optimistic surrogacy story in BioEdge last week, at least 15 children born to Irish couples who used overseas surrogates are stuck in a legal limbo.

A gripping feature about the mysteries of the human brain and parental love appeared in the New York Times recently.

A UK couple are distraught after a blunder at IVF Wales in Cardiff. Chris and Lorraine were told over the phone on the evening they returned from IVF Wales in Cardiff that a batch of eggs had been accidentally destroyed. The couple had been trying to have a baby for seven years. Earlier this month, the clinic was slated for mistakenly destroying sperm donated by cancer patients about to be treated.

Twelve New Jersey nurses have charged a hospital with religious discrimination after it announced it would introduce a policy that would require them to help patients before and after abortions. In a lawsuit filed at the end of October, the nurses charge that the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey breached state and federal law with its new abortion policy. This removed an exemption on moral or religious grounds.

The basic needs and human rights of elderly people receiving home care in England often go unfulfilled and physical and financial abuse happen too often, claims a report.

India is often described as the world surrogacy hub. But a good number of American women are also bearing children for overseas couples.

Millions of biomedical samples in Taiwan could soon be destroyed because they were obtained without proper informed consent. According to a recent law, all specimens must have the participants' written consent or they must be destroyed on February 5. The decision has put Taiwanese researchers at loggerheads with human rights groups.

The personal physician to deceased pop star Michael Jackson has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter. Jackson died in 2009 from an overdose of inappropriate medication for an inability to sleep.

Two words guaranteed to spark derision on a blog are Slippery and Slope. They are dismissed with either a smirk as a hoary old chesnut, scaremongering or religious sophistry. However, the slippery slope, the notion that small steps today will inevitably lead to bad policies later on, still has a lot of life in it – at least judging from the number of articles in learned journals which keep refuting it.

The concept of a “completed life” which deserves voluntary euthanasia is a controversial one. The Dutch group Of Free Will , which is campaigning for its legalisation, has explained the reasoning behind the movement in an English-language pamphlet, “The self-chosen death of the elderly”. It was written by Wouter Beekman and translated with the help of a grant from the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (SOARS), in the UK.

Hungarian police have launched an investigation into 70 suspicious deaths at a Budapest hospital following claims that patients were given lethal drug overdoses.

New Zealand writer-director made one of the all-time classic bioethics films, Gattaca, about the pursuit of genetic perfection. His latest is a thriller about life extension, In Time, with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The premise is that the world overlords have developed a robber baron technology for controlling population growth in the year 2061.

A new documentary presents first person stories of anonymous sperm donors. Anonymous Father's Day features the reflections of now adult children fathered anonymously. They share the pain, longing and uncertainties created by the secrecy of their conceptions. The producers have taken a rather negative view of the IVF industry.