By Brian D. Earp The latest issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics is out, and in it, Professor Nigel Biggar—an Oxford theologian—argues that “religion” should have a place in secular medicine (click here for a link to the article). Some people will feel a shiver go down their spines—and not only the non-religious. After […]
Category: JME
Physicians and Euthanasia: What about Psychiatric Illness, Dementia and Weltschmerz?
Guest Post by Eva Bolt In the Netherlands, requests for euthanasia are not uncommon. A physician who grants a request for euthanasia in the Netherlands is not prosecuted if the criteria for due care (described in the Euthanasia Act) are met. An example of one of these criteria is the presence of unbearable suffering without […]
In the Journal: The Ethics of Molecular Memory Modification
Guest post by Katrina Hui What if memories could be enhanced or erased, not through traditional pharmaceuticals, but directly, through manipulation of the molecular processes that govern memory? Several years ago, scientists thought they had found a single molecule believed to be the key to memory editing. This molecule, called protein kinase Mζ (PKMζ), appeared to […]
Should Anyone get IVF?
Cast your mind back to this summer, and Christina Richie’s paper about the provision of ARTs. It attracted a fair bit of controversy because of the way it talked about gay people’s rights to access ARTs, and their “voluntary” infertility. For my money, that was the weakest part of the paper, and it should have been […]
Growing a Kidney Inside a Pig Using your own DNA: The Ethics of ‘Chimera Organs’
Guest post by David Shaw Imagine that you’re in dire need of a new kidney. You’re near the top of the waiting list, but time is running out and you might not be lucky enough to receive a new organ from a deceased or living donor. But another option is now available: scientists could take […]
Paper Preview: Implementation of a Consent for Chart Review and Contact
Guest post by Irena Druce Our article “Implementation of a Consent for Chart Review and Contact and its Impact in one Clinical Centre” focuses on issues regarding patient health information privacy and recruitment for medical research studies. Research studies are an integral part of the advancement of medical therapies; however, recruitment into research studies can […]
The Ebola Outbreak in Western Africa: Ethical Obligations for Care
Guest post by Aminu Yakubu, Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, Patrick Nguku, Kristin Peterson, and Brandon Brown In our article “The Ebola Outbreak in Western Africa: Ethical Obligations for Care” we focus on the health care system’s ability to combat the recent epidemic of Ebola in Western Africa. This is a timely and urgent issue. Many medical ethicists […]
Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research
Guest post by Tom Buller, Illinois State University In my paper, “Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research”, I investigate whether advance directives can be applied in the context of dementia research. Consider, for the sake of argument, the following fictional case. William, a 77-year-old man who has moderate to severe dementia. When he was first […]
On Conflicts of Interest
It’s only a few days since Richie’s paper on providing IVF in the context of global warming was published, but already there’s been a couple of lines of objection to it that have been fairly widespread; I thought it might be worth nodding to one, and perhaps offering an attempt of a defence against the […]
Gaia Doesn’t Care where your Baby Comes From
Guest Post by Dominic Wilkinson, Associate Editor, Journal of Medical Ethics In a provocative paper published today in the Journal of Medical Ethics, US theologian Cristina Richie argues that the carbon cost and environmental impact of population growth in the West should lead to restrictions on artificial reproduction. She points to the substantial carbon emissions that […]