A Court in British Columbia has ruled that the law against assisted suicide (AS) in Canada cannot be reconciled with the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms – notably item 7 – Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with […]
Category: In the News
Treating the Sex Offender
This is an interesting story picked up by the BBC: drugs are being used to “suppress sexual thoughts and urges” among sex offenders in an experiment at HMP Whatton. It is early days, and the number taking part is small – so far fewer than 60 – but the graphs illustrating such measures as prisoners’ […]
Congratulations, Peter Singer
Just a quick post to note that Peter Singer has been made a Companion of the Order of Australia – which is, apparently, the Aussie equivalent of a KBE. The right-wing press ain’t happy – but irrespective of whether or not you agree with his claims, or his methods, Singer’s contribution to bioethics (and ethics more […]
IVF and Birth Defects: Is there a Moral Problem?
It was reported a couple of weeks ago that researchers had found a link between certain forms of assisted conception and an increased risk of birth defects. The paper, published in the NEJM, suggested that ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection) correlated with defets in just about 10% of births. The base rate is about 5.8%, rising […]
The benefits of contraception?
By David Hunter The government in New Zealand is proposing to spend $1 million of funding for women on a benefit and their teenage daughters to get long-term reversible contraception – such as an implant. Advice on accessing this treatment and its implications will be provided by case workers in the Social Services. The NZ […]
X-rays, aslyum seekers and research ethics/governance
By David Hunter There is an interesting story here: in the Guardian about a research trial being carried out by the UK border agency using dental x-rays to try and identify the age of young asylum seekers. […]
Drugs and Sex – or Drugs and Less Sex
Two slightly curious stories about drugs and sex. Or, rather, two stories about drugs and sex curiously juxtaposed. First, this story from Sunday’s Independent was inspired by this paper in The Journal of Sexual Medicine. Quite how much weight we should put on the JSM‘s paper is a moot point – it’s a case study involving one […]
Vaccination, and Policies for Enforcement
Rob Crilly reported in the Telegraph a couple of days ago that Pakistan is to pursue a policy of fining people who do not have their children vaccinated against polio. Now, at the time I write this, I can’t find this story or anything like it replicated elsewhere – Dawn, which is Pakistan’s biggest English-language […]
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 […]
Raised Glasses to Raised Prices?
The proposal that there should be a minimum 40p/ unit price for alcohol, announced last week, has been broadly welcomed. Not universally, but broadly. There has been some dissent – but, by and large, it doesn’t seem to have been particularly vocal. From a ethicist’s perspective, the objection that we might expect to hear articulated […]