Hmmmm. So Brian L picked up on Catarina’s post that picked up on Brian E’s post that picked up on the ever-simmering stuff about male circumcision – and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ latest policy position in particular – with the comment “Philosophers are a bit unworldly, but this is still quite something”. I take the […]
Category: Blogosphere
How Not to Respond to the Nicklinson Verdict
Unsurprisingly, the ruling handed down last week in respect of Tony Nicklinson and “Martin” has generated a lot of comment. A lot of that comment has disagreed with the ruling. David Allen Green, the Staggers‘ legal correspondent and also known as the blogger Jack of Kent, tweeted that it was a “dreadful court decision… depriving […]
More on Circumcision in Germany
Søren Holm sometimes jokes that, if you want your conference well-attended, you should have a paper on the ethics of circumcision. I don’t know how well-attended the recent IAB satellite on the topic was – the first half clashed with Peter Singer doing his thing, which can’t have helped it, and I couldn’t go to […]
Well, Consider my Jaw Dropped.
I know it’s not long since I last posted about the Christian Medical Fellowship’s blog, and I would ordinarily leave it a bit longer… but I’m about to go off on one. Forgive me. I’ve had a hard week marking exam scripts, and I’m tired and stressed and cranky, and this is just… well… Look: […]
You’re Worth more Dead than Alive
Via MedicalTranscription.net, here’s a rather fabulous little infographic about the value – well, the price – of transplant organs. (Update: moved below the fold, because otherwise you have the time to grow a liver in a petri-dish before the page has loaded.) […]
Onwards, to the past! Especially when slavery is involved…
Wow. Steve Fouch has, on the Christian Medical Fellowship’s blog, offered advice on how to vote in the BMA ballot on industrial action. Now, Fouch isn’t the same as the CMF, and I don’t suppose what he writes indicates the CMF’s position any more than what I write here represents the BMJ’s. Even so, what he suggests […]
Give the gift of giving – donate someone elses organ or how the current online system for organ donation allows you to sign up others as long as you know a few details about them. Oops.
By David Hunter Hattip to Nathan Emmerich for speculating about this on Facebook and then blogging about it here: Organ Donation: Why isn’t there an App for that? There are a number of ways you can volunteer to donate your organs when you die in the UK, you can sign up when you get a […]
A Very Small Amount of Relevance
Some very strange papers have just appeared in Bioethics regarding homeopathy. Not so long ago, the journal published a paper by Kevin Smith that advanced the claim that homeopathy is not only ineffective, but ethically problematic. The position taken was that homeopathy “ought to be actively rejected by healthcare professionals”, and that it is in fact ethically […]
Bioethics – a discipline without a natural home?
By David Hunter This post is inspired by this excellent and challenging article by Carl Elliot where he asks why should students study bioethics at scandal plagued institutions such as his own University of Minnesota (I said it was challenging). One of the problem he notes is that bioethicists in scandal plagued departments such as […]
A Small Solution for a Big Problem?
BioNews asked me to write something about Matthew Liao, Anders Sandberg and Rebacca Roache’s paper on engineering humanity to minimise global warming. I’d been meaning to for a while, so this was the prod I needed. Anyway: my take on their paper is here; but I thought I’d also reproduce it on this blog. What […]