By Koki Kato English is not my first language, so generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be particularly helpful when I write academic papers in English. It can make my sentences clearer, more concise and more natural. But I have also encountered a curious problem: sometimes AI makes my writing better and my argument worse. A […]
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British Columbia’s mental health law needs to carry its history forward
By Austin Lam On July 28, 2026, Justice Lauren Blake of the British Columbia (BC) Supreme Court ruled, in Council of Canadians with Disabilities v. British Columbia, that BC’s scheme for forcing psychiatric treatment on involuntary patients regardless of their capacity to consent breaches the Charter’s equality guarantee and its protection of life, liberty, and […]
The other dead-donor debate is already here
By Deyaan Guha In July, a New England Journal of Medicine article reopened one of transplantation ethics’ most fundamental questions: must organ donors be dead before vital organs are removed, and must removal never cause their death? The authors argued that the spread of voluntary euthanasia warrants reconsidering the dead-donor rule, including the possibility of […]
Agency, assistance, and the value of autonomy
By Thomas Donaldson Making decisions for ourselves (having autonomy) is a valuable part of being human. Considering the value of autonomy has important implications when someone requests help with something that they cannot do themselves, like asking for assistance to die. This is the focus of a discussion between Dr Bernard Long and myself in […]
Should patients have a say in the authorisation of animal experiments?
By David Azilagbetor Animal experiments are often justified by their potential benefits for patients. They are performed to understand diseases, test possible treatments, and generate knowledge that may eventually improve human health. Yet, when decisions are made about whether animal experiments should be ethically approved, patients themselves are rarely present in the room. This was […]
Spontaneous surgical innovations
By Isabella Grace Carnovale Suppose your loved one is having a routine surgical procedure, and something goes wrong. The surgeon could try an innovative technique to save them, but does not know whether it will work, or what the long-term side-effects of the innovation might be. Is it right for the surgeon to innovate in […]
Listening to women: Epistemic injustice and the Ockenden Report
By Noemi Magnani The Ockenden Report, published on 24 June 2026 following the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, reveals something significant about what it means to be heard–or not heard–in healthcare. The current maternity crisis is not only a clinical crisis. It is also an epistemic one. The problem identified by the report is […]
The author as reporter of research advancing AI output
By Shane Ryan What’s the point of academic research? An obvious answer is to advance knowledge and understanding in our various subject areas. Indeed, when peer reviewers judge that manuscripts submitted to journals do this, then often they recommend that those manuscripts be published. That a central goal of research is to advance knowledge and […]
Why journal editors should stop policing authorship
By Udo Schuklenk Brian Earp and colleagues invited commentaries on authorship and generative AI. They offer us some good reasons for why generative AI will be forcing us to disaggregate authorship, and also for the view that we may need different authorship criteria for different outputs. Perhaps they are right. My commentary goes in a […]
Can safeguards make psychiatric coercion harder to end?
By Katarzyna Widlas-Klimsiak The Council of Europe (CoE) is pursuing two different ways of protecting people who receive mental healthcare without their consent. A draft Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention would create binding obligations for states that ratify it. A new, non-binding Recommendation puts autonomy, consent and the prevention of coercion at the centre. The […]