This is the third of the dilemmas considered here. To allow childbirth, it is necessary to surgically open an infibulation. After delivery, women (and their husbands) ask for restoration of the infibulation (re-infibulation), which involves re-suturing. MSF opposes re-infibulation and works to ensure that it is not undertaken in its delivery facilities. Although MSF opposes this practice, […]
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Blogging hiatus
Apologies for the drop-off in blogging rates recently: I’ve been snowed under with real work and stuff. I – or Søren or David – wi’ll be back on track in the near future. 🙂 […]
The Anti-Abortion Appropriation of Consent
By far the biggest response that this blog has had came when I had a bit of a rant about Nadine Dorries a couple of weeks ago. I’m back on her case today; she’s the gift that keeps on giving. This video* provides footage of her speech to the Commons on Tuesday night; there’s a transcript available […]
Can you Insure the DNA Dozen?
There’s an interesting piece that’s been floating around some of the newspapers (Telegraph coverage here; The Australian here) over the last few days about the “DNA Dozen” – 11 scientists and one lawyer who’re having their genome published online in order to demystify the process and tame some of the public’s perception. Fair dos to […]
Housekeeping…
The comments moderation system here has changed over the last few days and I don’t know how to work it yet. If a comment you’ve tried to make since about Friday has disappeared, could you let me know via the email address in my profile? I worry about this because we usually get 5 or […]
Pharmaceutical Prohibition: as Successful as Ever
An item on Sky news the other day caught my attention. It concerned a new wave of legal highs being manufactured in China. The thrust of the report is that, in the wake of mephedrone having been banned a few weeks ago, enterprising Chinese chemists are working on a new set of chemicals designed to […]
Latest Statistics on Abortion in England and Wales…
… available here. […]
On the Lack of Socialised Healthcare
It’s very easy for a European to feel very smug about socialised medicine. Maybe the American system isn’t as bad as all that. Maybe we should be a bit more open about its merits. And maybe we should, in the process, ignore cases like that of JoAnn Knutson. Knutson was 72, and had a fall […]
It is official – Ethicists will still be here in 20 years time
The UK government sponsored science web-site for young people Science: [So what? So everything] has paid some futurologists to come up with 20 new jobs that will exist in 20 years time. Among the nano-medics and avatar managers you can also find the ‘New science’ ethicist’ described in the following way: “‘New science’ ethicist As […]
This may be the last post I ever make on this blog…
Saturday morning, 30th January 2010, I – along with many other people – will be taking a massive overdose. As it happens, I’ll be doing so in a seminar room at the Wellcome Trust, so there will probably be lots of medical sorts nearby. I’ll tell them not to intervene. I may even encourage them to […]