January Archive


Michael Cook | 27 January 2012
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has given a big boost to opponents of legalised euthanasia. This body, which (somewhat confusingly) is not part of the European Union, is an advisory body in Strasbourg with more than 300 delegates whose pronouncements on human rights are highly influential in the EU.

Michael Cook | 27 January 2012
Is it morally wrong to kill people? Not really, argue two eminent American bioethicists in an early online article in the Journal of Medical Ethics. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, of Duke University, and Franklin G. Miller, of the National Institutes of Health believe that “killing by itself is not morally wrong, although it is still morally wrong to cause total disability”.

Michael Cook | 27 January 2012
Is that rustling in the bushes a deer or my brother? What the hell. We’ll sort it out later… BANG! Most people would regard moral reasoning like this as at least superficial. Several paediatricians writing in the latest issue of Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine apparently agree. They have called for a moratorium on donating organs after cardiac death (DCD) until a number of troubling issues have been resolved. The pre-press, peer-reviewed article offers a good summary of the ethical issues.

Michael Cook | 21 January 2012
It is difficult to imagine a case better scripted for a discussion of informed consent than Mary Moe’s Massachusetts abortion.

Michael Cook | 21 January 2012
The UK’s cosmetic surgery industry is under fire in the wake of the liquidation of a French company which made faulty breast implants. For a number of years Poly Implant Prothese had been manufacturing breast implants with industrial grade silicon instead of medical grade. Now the implants are rupturing at a higher than normal rate and a woman has died in France of a rare cancer which appears to be related to the leakage.

Michael Cook | 20 January 2012
Here is contrarian bioethics at its best. Pregnancy and childbirth are so painful, risky and socially restrictive for women that public funding should urgently be directed to the development of artificial wombs. This is the only way to achieve true equality between men and women for then neither women nor men would then be limited by having children and the burdens of reproducing the species would be shared equally.

Michael Cook | 18 January 2012
More from the booming surrogate mother industry. A Philadelphia company is raising eyebrows by describing gestational surrogacy as a paying job. An email from Surrogate Services International says that "In this economy and particularly around the holiday season one would think a local business would not have any trouble filling job openings." It is offering "well paid, part-time positions" as egg donors and surrogate mothers.

Michael Cook | 18 January 2012
A 3-year-old girl who was allegedly denied an opportunity for a kidney transplant because she was “mentally retarded” has sparked a debate in the US media. Amelia Rivera has a rare genetic disease known as Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome that can cause mental impairment, seizures and kidney failure. However, her parents were told by doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia that there would be no transplant.

Michael Cook | 18 January 2012
After a long legal and political debate leading up to a decision by its Supreme Court in 1988, Canada has ended up as one of the few nations in the world without an abortion law. About 100,000 abortion are performed each year. But now the Canadian Medical Association Journal is calling for strict limits on abortion – if the mother wants to abortion a child simply because it is a girl.

Michael Cook | 17 January 2012
The UK should legalise assisted suicide, says a report by a private group headed by former lord chancellor Lord Falconer.

Michael Cook | 17 January 2012
Remember the Avis Rent-a-Car commercials from the 1960s? Maybe not. Anyhow, they tripled the company’s market share with the slogan, “Avis Is Only No. 2, We Try Harder.” The Belgian right-to-die lobby seems to have the same can-do attitude.

December Archive


Michael Cook | 17 December 2011
Hey, this is pretty cool: an annotated list of dramas and documentaries about bioethical topics at the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics (SCHB). It was launched this week.

Michael Cook | 17 December 2011
Given that chimpanzees are so closely related to us, American researchers should allow them to be used in biomedical research only under stringent conditions, says a report from the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. These include the absence of any other suitable model and inability to ethically perform the research on people.

Jared Yee | 17 December 2011
A New South Wales government proposal to prevent families from overturning their deceased relatives’ wishes on organ donation has garnered mixed reactions.

Jared Yee | 17 December 2011
From the outside, it’s a two-room apartment. However, within its walls, it’s a barn for 15 surrogate mothers, all at various stages of pregnancy.



Page 2 of 205 pages  < 1 2 3 4 >  Last ›

 
 Search BioEdge

 Subscribe to BioEdge newsletter
rss Subscribe to BioEdge RSS feed

 Recent Posts
Lost in surrogacy’s Bermuda Triangle
3 Feb 2012
Scores of UK patients die with bedsores, infections and malnutrition
3 Feb 2012
Crackdown on illegal abortions restores Taiwan sex ratio
3 Feb 2012
Immigrant dad will miss out on transplant
3 Feb 2012
North Carolina may compensate victims of eugenics program
2 Feb 2012

 Archive
Feb 2012 | Jan 2012 | Dec 2011 | more >>

 Best of the web