It’s good to see Nils’ post about the recent UK cryonics ruling getting shared around quite a bit – so it should. I thought I’d throw in my own voice, too. About 18 months ago, Imogen Jones and I wrote a paper musing on some of the ethical and legal dimensions of Christopher Priest’s The Prestige. […]
Category: The Art of Medicine
Justice Cryogenically Delayed is Justice Denied?
Guest Post by Nils Hoppe Re JS (Disposal of Body) [2016] EWHC 2859 (Fam) This unusual and sad case concerns a court application by a 14 year old girl, JS. In 2015 she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer which proved terminal and, at the time of her application, she was receiving palliative […]
We’re all Gonna Die… Eventually
It might just be a product of the turnover of people with whom I have much professional contact, but I’ve not heard as much about human enhancement in the past couple of years as I had in, say, 2010. In particular, there seems to be less being said about radical life extension. Remember Aubrey de […]
Letter from Iraq: Ethical Dilemmas in an Iraqi Burn Centre
Guest Post by Mustafa AL-Shamsi Health requires a multidisciplinary approach. In the absence of proper support, facilities and literate people, there is little that a physician can do to cure his patient regardless his proficiency. The following is not a story; it comes from what I experienced when I was an intern at the burn […]
The Challenge of Futile Treatment
Guest Post by Lindy Willmott and Ben White For decades, researchers from around the world have found evidence that doctors provide futile treatment to adult patients who are dying. Some discussion of this topic has turned on matters of definition (see our recent contribution to this debate), with a broader concept of “perceived inappropriate treatment” […]
There’s Argument, and there’s Disputation.
Very well, then: let’s allow that the quality of argument in bioethics – and clinical ethics in particular – is not of high quality. What should be done about it? That’s a hard question, though it’s predictable and wholly justifiable that it should be asked. And, to be honest, I don’t know offhand. I might […]
Patient Views about Consent, Confidentiality & Information-Sharing in Genetic Medicine.
Guest post by Sandi Dheensa, Angela Fenwick and Anneke Lucassen Imagine you’re a clinician in genetic medicine. For a while, you’ve been seeing Joe Bloggs, a patient with a mutation in a gene that’s caused a hereditary form of colon cancer. As is your standard practice, you help Joe identify who in his family is also […]
How We Feel about Human Cloning
Guest post by Joshua May Suppose you desperately want a healthy child to build a family of your own. As is increasingly common, however, you can’t do it naturally – whether from infertility, a genetic disease you don’t want to pass on, or a non-traditional relationship. If you seek a genetic connection with the child, […]
Nurses Cannot be Good Catholics
Guest Post by John Olusegun Adenitire It seems that if you are a nurse you cannot be a good Catholic. Or, better: if you want to work as a nurse then you might have to give up some of your religious beliefs. A relatively recent decision of the UK Supreme Court, the highest court in the […]
Mature Content?
There’s an aisle at the supermarket that has a sign above it that reads “ADULT CEREALS”. Every time I see it, I snigger inwardly at the thought of sexually explicit cornflakes. (Pornflakes. You’re welcome.) It’s not big, and it’s not clever: I know that. But all these years living in south Manchester have taught me to […]