Guest Post by Nathan Emmerich In the UK, a recent high-court decision[1] has reignited the debate about whether or not Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) should be provided to those who are deemed to be at high-risk of contracting HIV.[2] Despite the fact that NHS England is now appealing,[3] it was a fairly innocuous decision: having suggested […]
Category: Guest Post
A World Without Bioethicists? On Sally Phillip’s “A World Without Down’s”
Guest Post by Nathan Emmerich, Queen’s University Belfast On Wednesday night, BBC2 broadcast a documentary entitled ‘A World Without Down’s Syndrome?’ Even if you did not see the programme itself, you may have heard about it on the radio, read some of the commentary published over the past week, or spotted it on Twitter under the […]
Further Clarity on Co-operation and Morality
Guest Post by David S. Oderberg, University of Reading Re: Further clarity on co-operation and morality The 2014 US Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was a landmark case on freedom of religion and conscience in the USA. The so-called ‘contraceptive mandate’ of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) requires employers to provide health insurance […]
Personal Responsibility Within Health Policy: Unethical and Ineffective
Guest Post by Phoebe Friesen Re: Personal responsibility within health policy: unethical and ineffective If someone who has smoked two packs a day for thirty years and someone who has never smoked but is unfortunate enough to inherit a genetic condition are both in need of heart surgery, who should be given priority? Should an […]
Our Special Treatment of Patients in a Vegetative State is a Form of Cruel and Unusual Punishment
by Professor Dominic Wilkinson, @Neonatalethics Professor of Medical Ethics, Consultant Neonatologist Our society has good reason to provide special treatment to people with severe brain injuries and their families. But our current “special treatment” for a group of the most severely affected people with brain injuries leads to devastating, agonising, protracted and totally preventable suffering. […]
Should Junior Doctors Still Strike?
Guest Post by Adam James Roberts In early July, the British Medical Association’s junior members voted by a 16-point margin to reject a new employment contract negotiated between the BMA’s leadership and the Government. The chair of the BMA’s junior doctors committee, Johann Malawana, stood down following the result, noting the “considerable anger and mistrust” […]
Is it Ethical to Pay Adolescents to Take HIV Treatment?
Guest Post by Rebecca Hope, Nir Eyal, Justin Healy & Jacqueline Bhabha Re: Paying for antiretroviral adherence: is it unethical when the patient is an adolescent? With treatment, a child with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa can expect to live a healthy life. Better access to HIV treatment is contributing to a global decline in HIV deaths […]
Letter from Iraq: Ethical Dilemmas in an Iraqi Burn Centre
Guest Post by Mustafa AL-Shamsi Health requires a multidisciplinary approach. In the absence of proper support, facilities and literate people, there is little that a physician can do to cure his patient regardless his proficiency. The following is not a story; it comes from what I experienced when I was an intern at the burn […]
Sharing Motherhood and Patriarchal Prejudices
Guest Post by Ezio Di Nucci, University of Copenhagen Re: IVF, Same Sex Couples and the Value of Biological Ties Reproductive technologies are increasingly enabling access to parenthood to people who previously could not procreate: these developments are changing concepts and practices within family relationships in interesting ways. Take the following example: in a particular form […]
Making Humans Morally Better Won’t Fix the Problems of Climate Change
Guest Post by Bob Simpson, Monash University Re: Climate change, cooperation and moral bioenhancement The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly said that greenhouse gas emissions increase the likelihood of severe and irreversible harm for people and ecosystems. And in his State of the Union address in 2015, Barack Obama emphasised these problems, saying that climate change […]