By Jeremy Snyder Using entertainment to encourage giving for health-related causes isn’t new. However, health-related ‘philanthrotainment’ has evolved recently with the help of online content creators like Jimmy Donaldson, more commonly known as MrBeast. My article “The Ethics of Online Health-Related Philanthrotainment” discusses how this marriage of social media influencers and philanthropic fundraising can create […]
Category: Bioethics
Assisted dying in England and Wales: Arranging provision and at what cost?
By Alexandra Mullock, Suzanne Ost, and Nancy Preston With lawful assisted dying (AD) on the horizon in England and Wales with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, and elsewhere in and around the UK (Isle of Man, Jersey, Scotland), important questions about how best to establish a service to provide safe access to […]
Gaza and boycotts – an ethical perspective
By Zohar Lederman As I write this, the Jewish Film Festival is playing in Hong Kong. After buying tickets, I learned that some people are boycotting the event to protest Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Another friend has suggested that Israeli academics should expect and understand being boycotted for the same reason. In a recent conference […]
When evidence has only one arm: The ethical challenges of single arm trials
By Chiara Mannelli and Giuseppe Traversa Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have long been regarded as the “gold standard” for testing new treatments. Yet in recent years, an increasing number of marketing authorizations – especially for cancer drugs – have been based on single arm trials (SATs). In these studies, all patients receive the experimental treatment, […]
Not all persons are persons, yet some non-persons are persons: how one word hides two meanings
By Dr. Johnny Sakr Everyone thinks they know what a person is, right up until they try to define one. In their recent contribution to the Journal of Medical Ethics, Nancy Jecker and Caesar Atuire invite a richer and more humane account. Drawing on African philosophical traditions, they argue that personhood is not an isolated […]
M3GAN 2.0: A case study in AI ethics and policy
By Ambria Williams, Lisa Kearns, and Kellie Owens This piece contains spoilers for the films “M3GAN” and “M3GAN 2.0”. Imagine a science fiction horror movie with an ethicist as the protagonist. As improbable as that seems, it’s the case in M3GAN 2.0, the sequel to the 2023 box-office hit M3GAN, in which an AI tech […]
Confucian-inspired global bioethics
By Nancy S. Jecker and Roger Yat-Nork Chung. Bioethics faces challenges with respect to equity, diversity, and inclusion. As a group, we bioethicists are unrepresentative of the global population we increasingly serve. Leading bioethics scholars and institutions are situated mostly in the politically and economically dominant countries of the Global North. Within countries, bioethicists are […]
The War in Gaza and its Effects on Israelis
By Zohar Lederman The ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza (and to a lesser degree in the West Bank) is morally abhorrent and is in clear and undeniable violation of international humanitarian law. The war and its effects on Palestinians have been largely ignored by bioethicists, and the little that has been published is mostly […]
Hidden harms and the death of Alexei Navalny
By Johnna Wellesley. “Life makes no sense if you have to tolerate endless lies.” (Navalny) The sudden death of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on 16 February 2024 in an Arctic penal colony was felt around the world. Responding to the announcement from the Federal Penitentiary Service, his wife, Yulia, addressed the Munich Security […]
Queering the genome: epigenome editing for biological lesbian motherhood
By Adrian Villalba. In the thrilling frontier of reproductive technologies, a ground-breaking approach aims to shake the foundations of conventional norms – it’s called epigenome editing. Imagine a world where same-sex couples can have genetically related children without the traditional genetic hurdles. Welcome to the era of “queering the genome”. This revolutionary technique bypasses the […]