In the wake of Savita Halappanavar’s death, a statement was issued by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. The whole thing is available here. However, I think that a couple of paragraphs is particularly worth picking out: Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such […]
Category: Philosophy
Modesty, Conscience, and What it Takes to be a Doctor (with a bit of Comedy)
Two apparently unrelated new and new-ish papers in the JME have caught my eye over the last few days. One of them is this one: Salilah Saidun’s “Photographing Human Subjects in Biomedical Disciplines: An Islamic Perspective”. We’ll come to the other in a little while. There’s a couple of puzzling things about the paper. One is […]
Mouse Eggs: A Cool Solution to a First-World Problem?
The news that Japanese researchers have successfully induced skin cells to behave like viable eggs, which have then been fertilised to create a new generation of mice, may well come to be seen as a scientific milestone. And if it’s not that, it’s definitely very, very cool. (The original paper is here.) Though the research […]
Passive Euthanasia: A Cri de Cœur
Don’t worry: this isn’t another instance of me yammering on about the right to die or the right to induce death. I’ve recently received a parcel; it contained a copy of this book by Leanne Bell, which happened to fall open at p 204. On that page, you’ll find this passage: Active euthanasia involves a deliberate act […]
Is Bioethics Really a Bully? Really?
On his blog in The Independent, John Rentoul has a long-running feature called “Questions to which the Answer is No“. In it, he examines the kind of screaming rhetorical-question headline much beloved of certain middle-market tabloids: “Is this photographic evidence of Nessie?”, “Does coffee cure cancer?”, “Does coffee cause cancer?”, “Does MMR bring down house prices?“* and […]
Philosophy, Bioethics and Otherworldliness
Hmmmm. So Brian L picked up on Catarina’s post that picked up on Brian E’s post that picked up on the ever-simmering stuff about male circumcision – and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ latest policy position in particular – with the comment “Philosophers are a bit unworldly, but this is still quite something”. I take the […]
More on Circumcision in Germany
Søren Holm sometimes jokes that, if you want your conference well-attended, you should have a paper on the ethics of circumcision. I don’t know how well-attended the recent IAB satellite on the topic was – the first half clashed with Peter Singer doing his thing, which can’t have helped it, and I couldn’t go to […]
Why philosophical theorising about distributive justice in health care (mostly) doesn’t work
By David Hunter I had the pleasure yesterday at the IAB 2012 to see Daniel Wikler run a symposium on population level bioethics – which primarily focused on prioritisation decisions. This was useful for me since it helped me coalesce why I think many if not all attempts to give a philosophical account of distributive […]
Canadian Ban on Assisted Suicide “Unconstitutional”
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 […]
Is Julian Savulescu Channelling Bryan Ferry?
Specifically, I have in mind Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug“. (Annoyingly, I can’t get the video to embed.*) And I don’t just mean Julian – I mean him, and Anders Sandberg, with Brian Earp somewhere in there too. The thought crosses my mind because I’ve been reading this essay in New Scientist, which apparently […]