Not so long ago, Søren posted an item on this blog welcoming the ECHR’s verdict that the UK policy of storing DNA samples from all people who’d been arrested, regardless of guilt, was in contravention of Human Rights laws. A couple of days ago, the UK government published its response. It’s either remarkably sinister or remarkably […]
Category: In the News
Contraception, Duties and Rights
Ema is not happy: The Missouri House on Tuesday [that is, 28.iv.09 – IB] voted 115-43 to approve HB 226, an amendment that [s]pecifies that no pharmacy can be required to perform, assist, recommend, refer to, or participate in any act or service resulting in an abortion and it will be immune from liability for […]
Obligatory Topical Swine Flu Post
The appearance of Swine Flu over the past couple of days is the sort of thing that provides ample food for thought among ethicists, particularly public health ethicists. One perennial question, for example, concerns exactly what governments ought to do to protect their populations from infection – is spending on flu vaccines a good way […]
Post Mortems by MRI?
The BBC is reporting that families may be able to request that post-mortems be carried out by MRI rather than invasively under new proposals. The qualification here is that [c]oroners [would] make the decision on a case-by-case basis as MRI scans may not always be the appropriate means to determining a cause of death, the […]
UK among Worst Places in Europe to be a Child
The Child Poverty Action Group has published a report today in which the UK is accused of being among the worst places in Europe to be a child on a range of measures. For example, the UK comes 24th out of 29 countries when it comes to the assessment of birth-weight; it’s 21st when it comes […]
Irish Euthanasia Lecture Cancelled
A curious story from the Irish Times: a lecture by Len Doyal on euthanasia had to be cancelled after disruption from protesters: he’s now complained to the President. The protesters apparently shouted obscenities and, er, the Rosary. There are more details here. In the meantime, I just can’t help myself: Thanks to Richard Ashcroft and […]
The Benefits of not being an Alcoholic
Some health policies are very well thought-through and their merits are obvious. Others take a bit of time and thought for their merits to become clear. Some are well-meaning but wrong. And some are mad as a bag of wasps in a salad-spinner. Into which category should we put James Purnell’s suggestion that alcoholics should […]
What does the Press Think about HPV Vaccination?
It would seem that it depends what country you’re in. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before someone suggests that it’s sales, rather than science, that determines newspapers’ editorial policy. Heaven forbid. […]
An Easter Sperm Story: The Defeat of Death
This from the bioethics.net blog: A woman’s 21-year-old son dies in a Texas bar fight. The bereaved mom wants the son’s clearly virile and tenacious genes to live on in the next generation and fights to have his sperm collected and stored so that someone may carry his seed. She says, on the one hand, […]
Sperm Banks and Product Liability
The New Scientist is carrying this rather peculiar story: a sperm bank in New York is being sued under product liability law by a girl who claims that her conception was from “faulty” sperm. The 13-year-old girl named in the suit has Fragile X syndrome; apparently, she does not have to show that the sperm bank […]