By Iain Brassington Baroness O’Loan’s Conscientious Objection Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords yesterday. It’s only short, but there’s a part of it that I find a little perplexing. Section 1(1) says that No medical practitioner with a conscientious objection to participating in— (a) the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment; (b) any activity […]
Category: Life and Death
The Real Problem With Human Head Transplantation
Guest Post: Michael S. Dauber, MA * Note: this article is being cross-posted at the Practical Ethics blog. In 2015, Sergio Canavero announced that he would perform a therapeutic head transplant procedure on a human subject by December 2017. Since then, he has recruited the assistance of surgeon Xiaoping Ren and switched from Valery Spiridonov to an […]
Life and Death: Apples and Oranges?
Guest Post: Carl Tollef Solberg, Ole Frithjof Norheim and Mathias Barra Article: The Disvalue of Death in the Global Burden of Disease The global burden of disease (GBD) study is “a systematic, scientific effort to quantify the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geographies for […]
Does the Doctrine of Double Effect Apply to the Prescription of Barbiturates? Syme vs the Medical Board of Australia
Guest Post: Xavier Symons Paper: Does the doctrine of double effect apply to the prescription of barbiturates? Syme vs the Medical Board of Australia My recently published article analyses the controversial Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) hearing Syme vs The Medical Board of Australia. In that hearing, Dr Rodney Syme, an Australian urologist and euthanasia […]
Charlie Gard: An Ethical Analysis of a Legal Non-Problem
By Iain Brassington (Cross-posted from EJIL: Talk!) For those with an internet connection and an interest in current affairs, the story of Charlie Gard been hard to avoid recently. A decent précis is available here; but it’s worth rehearsing. Shortly after his birth, Charlie’s health began to deteriorate, and he was diagnosed with a terminal and […]
Charlie Gard and the Ethics Commentator
Guest Post: Daniel Sokol ‘Best interest’ cases, such as the Charlie Gard case, are fundamentally about medical ethics, although they are determined by a single judge in a court of law. At the hearing last week, there were at least 4 express references to medical ethics. The first appeared in the hospital’s “position statement”, drafted […]
Guest Post: Withdrawing Life-Prolonging Treatment in the Patient’s Best Interests: The Implications of Briggs
Guest Post: Jenny Kitzinger, Celia Kitzinger and Jakki Cowley Paper: When ‘Sanctity of Life’ and ‘Self-Determination’ clash In a recent landmark judgment in the Court of Protection (Briggs v Briggs [2016] EWCOP 53), a judge authorised withdrawal of life-prolonging treatment from a minimally conscious patient with potential for further recovery. Our article in the Journal of […]
Is Hope a Virtue?
By Iain Brassington It’s perfectly understandable that hope should have featured so prominently in the coverage of the Charlie Gard case; each proposal is presented as offering fresh hope, each reversal presented as dashing hopes. In either case, hope is something presented as desirable. A bit more deeply, hope is one of the Theological Virtues, and […]
Never Let an Ill Child Go to Waste
By Iain Brassington The Charlie Gard saga is one about which I’ve been reluctant to say anything, not least because plenty of other people have said plenty elsewhere. Sometimes they add heat, and sometimes they add light. Beneath everything, the story is fairly simple: a small child is terribly ill; it is agreed by medical opinion […]
No Pain, All Gain: The Case for Farming Organs in Brainless Humans
Guest post by Ruth Stirton, University of Sussex (@RuthStirton) and David Lawrence, Newcastle University (@Biojammer) It is widely acknowledged that there is a nationwide shortage of organs for transplantation purposes. In 2016, 400 people died whilst on the organ waiting list. Asking for donors is not working fast enough. We should explore all avenues to […]