Guest Authors: Xavier Symons, Institute for Ethics and Society, University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Reginald Mary Chua, Philosophy, Catholic Theological College, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Paper: Organismal death, the dead donor rule and the ethics of vital organ procurement The brain death criterion for death (as it is currently understood in medical practice) was first propounded in 1968 by an […]
Category: Life and Death
What Makes an Emergency?
By Iain Brassington Stanley Cavell died a few days ago. He is, I suspect, not widely known among medical ethicists, and is cited less. Fair enough: medical ethics wasn’t his thing. It’s a shame, though, because his work did strike me as being worth getting to know. This is not to say that I was familiar […]
Why the Parents of Both Charlie Gard and More Recently Alfie Evans Should Have Been Allowed to Decide About Their Sons’ Best Interests
Guest post by Raanan Gillon Re: Why the parents of Charlie Gard should have been allowed to decide on his best interests. This blog briefly summarises and adds to my paper due to appear in the JME’s forthcoming symposium on the case of Charlie Gard[1]. Because of the widespread unpopularity of my views amongst doctors, […]
The Children Missing from Nelson’s Column
By Iain Brassington There’s a cliché that says that hard cases make bad law. Truth be told, there’s a whole list of things that make, or make for, bad law. Highly visible public protests make for bad law. Lack of measured thought makes for bad law. Journalistic pressure makes for bad law. And anything – anything […]
“An intermittent safeguard for health”
Guest post by Matteo Winkler, École des hautes études commerciales de Paris I thought I’d drop you a few lines to explain how I view the Italian intervention on the case of Alfie Evans. On 24 April, the Italian government, acting upon a proposal presented by the Minister of Interior Marco Minniti, resolved to grant Alfie […]
Alfie Evans: Please, just stop.
By Iain Brassington Last summer, as the Charlie Gard saga was unfolding, was a slightly strange time to be a bioethicist. Perhaps fortuitously, I was out of the country as matters began to gather pace; I was able to post a couple of blog posts (like this and this), but could generally keep my head down […]
Advance Euthanasia Directives in the Spotlight
Guest Post: David Gibbes Miller, Rebecca Dresser, Scott Y H Kim Paper: Advance euthanasia directives: a controversial case and its ethical implications Dutch law allows advance directives to authorize euthanasia for people who can no longer make a voluntary and well-considered choice to end their lives. People make advance euthanasia directives (AEDs) with the goal of protecting themselves from […]
Unethical World Medical Association Standards for Placebo Trials?
Guest post by Jeremy Howick Trials show that drugs called ‘interferon alpha’ extend life in people with advanced skin cancer (by a bit). If we invented a new drug to treat advanced skin cancer, most patients would want to know whether the new drug was better than interferon alpha. It would be less useful […]
More on Conscientious Objection: a Repy to a Reply
Guest post by Divine Banyubala A couple of days ago, Iain raised an interesting question about the draft Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) Bill, and its compatibility with existing law (both civil and criminal) in respect of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. In an insightful reply, Mary Neal made the points that “in key areas of practice […]
Conscientious Objection: A Quick(ish) Answer
Guest post by Mary Neal, Law School, University of Strathclyde The Conscientious Objection (Medical Activities) [HL] Bill, introduced by the crossbench peer Baroness O’Loan, received its second reading in the House of Lords on Friday 26th January and successfully proceeded to the committee stage. In a post on this blog the following day, Iain posed […]