Remember a little while ago there was a rash of proposals in the US that’d force women to see a sonogram of the foetus, or to listen to detailed descriptions of it, before having an abortion? Yeah: them. Well, via Ophelia, here’s an account of what really happens. Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that […]
Category: In the News
Unlocking the Right to Die?
It’s just been reported that Tony Nicklinson has won the right to have his right to die case heard before the courts. This is the result of a hearing in which the Ministry of Justice’s contention was that any such case would potentially re-write the murder laws, and that this is a matter for Parliament, […]
An open letter from Giubilini and Minerva
When we decided to write this article about after-birth abortion we had no idea that our paper would raise such a heated debate. “Why not? You should have known!” people keep on repeating everywhere on the web. The answer is very simple: the article was supposed to be read by other fellow bioethicists who were […]
“Liberals Are Disgusting”: In Defence of the Publication of “After-Birth Abortion”
The Journal of Medical Ethics prepublished electronically an article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” This article has elicited personally abusive correspondence to the authors, threatening their lives and personal safety. The Journal has received a string abusive emails for its decision to publish this article. This […]
Calling Charlton Heston…
It’s been a while since the last post, and there’s a couple of serious entries on the way – but they’ve been displaced by a bit of silliness from Oklahoma. State Senator Ralph Shortey (or SHortey, if you follow his Facebook style) has introduced a Bill demanding that [n]o person or entity shall manufacture or […]
Suffering and the Human Condition
I’m currently working my way through the recently-released report by the Commission on Assisted Dying – it’s a long and appropriately life-sapping document, but a number of commentators has been quicker than I to get through it. Douglas Noble, writing at the BMJ blog, isn’t impressed. Based on what I’ve read so far, I’m tempted […]
Is Bird Flu Research a Security Risk?
A story that has had a little airtime on the news over the last 24 hours or so concerns requests by US officials that details of research into a bird flu variant be held back from publication on the grounds that it might be of use to terrorists: The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity recommended […]
A Conscience Clause with Claws
There’s a flurry of papers on conscientious objection in the latest JME: Giles Birchley argues, taking his cue from Arendt, that conscientious objection has a place in medicine here; Sophie Strickland’s paper on medical students’ attitude to conscientious objection (which I mentioned in July) is here; and Morten Magelssen wonders when conscientious objection should be accepted here. […]
Smoking in Cars and the BMA: The Counterwheeze
You can tell libertarians from the sound they make: it’s the faint rattle of a tiny intellect untethered in an otherwise empty mind. Cheap and all-too-easy insults aside, though, I’d been wondering how long it’d be, in the wake of the BMA’s recommendation that smoking be banned from cars, before we got a response from […]
What can we Learn from “The Exorcist”?
When John Sentamu stood up in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago and spoke about the need for the NHS to concern itself with “spiritual” needs – and illustrated his claim with an anecdote about something resembling an exorcism – the response from a lot of the blogosphere was, at its friendliest, one […]