Legal Comment on Nicklinson, Lamb and AM Appeals

Guest post by Alexandra Mullock, University of Manchester The Supreme Court, in the long awaited verdict in the Nicklinson appeals, essentially delivered both good news and bad news for all concerned. The appeals by Jane Nicklinson (continuing her late husband’s battle), Paul Lamb and AM (known as Martin) were all rejected. The DPP won her appeal […]

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Intentionally Exposing Patients to HIV: When Might it be Ethical?

Guest Post by Bram Wispelwey, Ari Zivotofsky, and Alan Jotkowitz Much has been made of the fact that over the last two decades HIV has transformed from an inevitable, agonising killer into a controllable chronic disease.  But have we reached a point where infecting someone with HIV in order to avoid other, potentially worse health outcomes […]

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How Not to Argue against a Proposed Law

Yes, yes: it’s tedious and internecine, but it’s almost a year since I had a pop at Kevin Yuill’s book on assisted dying; how about an update?  Well, conveniently, there’s this, in which he tries “to convince my fellow liberal minded atheists to reconsider their support for legalized assisted dying”.  OK, then.  First up, this isn’t […]

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Their Poor Little Heads might Explode

There’s a nice little piece by Martin Robbins in this week’s Guardian in which he talks about the fact that women seem to be less supportive of abortion than men.  That does seem counterintuitive, given that… well, given the obvious physiological facts and the relative burden of risks related to pregnancy.  So there’s an interesting little anthropological […]

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