December Archive

North Carolina’s eugenic past makes headlines again

Jared Yee | 17 December 2011

North Carolina’s eugenic past has made headlines again as legislators push to compensate the estimated 7,600 victims of its eugenics program.

Do we need to rename “persistent vegetative state”?

Jared Yee | 17 December 2011

Do we need to change the name of persistent vegetative state?

UK to study guidelines for doctors who are asked to help in a suicide

Michael Cook | 17 December 2011

The UK body for regulating doctors, the General Medical Council, has announced that it is working on guidelines for telling doctors what they should do if a patient asks for help in committing suicide. There is an increasing number of Britons seeking to go to Switzerland to seek death at suicide clinics. There will be a public consultation early next year.

Panel gives US govt funded clinical research clean bill of health

Michael Cook | 17 December 2011

Current rules and regulations provide adequate safeguards to mitigate risk in clinical trial, says the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. After a survey of federally-sponsored research involving human volunteers after a scandal over highly unethical treatment of Guatemalan patients in the late 1940s by doctors in the Public Health Service, Commission basically gave American research a clean bill of health.

Has the time come for “queer bioethics”?

Michael Cook | 16 December 2011

As same-sex marriage gains traction in the legal sphere, what about in bioethics? Two bioethicists at the University of Pennsylvania have issued a stirring call for a “queer bioethics” in the leading journal Bioethics.

Sex selection: not as awful as you thought

Michael Cook | 16 December 2011

Bioethicist Timothy F. Murphy, at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, argues in the journal Bioethics, that “the natural sex ratio cannot be a sound moral basis for prohibiting parents from selecting the sex of their children”. What he objects to is the notion that there exists a natural state of affairs which should not be changed.

Celebrating the festive season in the UK

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

A new scheme launched by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service has made getting the morning after pill as easy as ordering a pizza – but unlike pizza, it will be free.

Obama administration bans morning-after pill for under-17s

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

In a surprise move, the Obama Administration has overruled a decision by the Federal Food and Drug Adminisration to allow girls under 17 to buy the morning-after pill without a prescription.

Is China harvesting organs from ethnic minorities?

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

A frightening article in the Weekly Standard sheds some light on the situation. Investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann interviewed several Uighur refugees now living in the West who had witnessed the process of organ transplantation. They tell stories of ghastly abuses of political prisoners.

Are 98% of UK abortions “technically illegal”?

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

The keenness of British journalists to score exclusives and to run down the last details of stories are legendary – or at least they are now, after the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Which is what makes the ho-hum coverage of this week’s report on mental health and abortion in the UK so puzzling.

Hope for cure for cleft palate

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have used genetic methods to successfully repair cleft lips in mice embryos. The research breakthrough may show the way to prevent or treat the conditions in humans.

Is the slippery slope at work in Belgium?

Michael Cook | 10 December 2011

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.

Massachusetts Medical Society reasserts opposition to physician-assisted suicide

Jared Yee | 10 December 2011

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.

Cloning in Korea

Jared Yee | 10 December 2011

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.

Many surrogate children end up in legal limbo

Jared Yee | 10 December 2011

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.

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