We’ve not had a film review here before, have we? As far as I can tell, the ratio of talked-about-ness to actual screenings of Obvious Child is unusually high; it doesn’t seem to have got all that much time in mainstream cinemas, which meant that I had to schlep along to Manchester’s Cornerhouse to see it. (I […]
Latest articles
Oh, dear, Richard…
Look, I know that Twitter really isn’t the place for nuanced debate. But, by that token, everyone else should realise that as well – especially intellectual superstars. So how, then, to explain Richard Dawkins’ spectacular foot-in-mouth moment earlier today? It started off reasonably enough, with him tweeting about Catholicism’s stance on abortion and providing a […]
Adrenaline, Information Provision and the Benefits of a Non-Randomised Methodology
Guest Post by Ruth Stirton and Lindsay Stirton, University of Sheffield One of us – Ruth – was on Newsnight on Wednesday the 13th August talking about the PARAMEDIC2 trial. The trial is a double blind, individually randomised, placebo controlled trial of adrenaline v. normal saline injections in cardiac arrest patients treated outside hospital. In simpler terms, if […]
Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research
Guest post by Tom Buller, Illinois State University In my paper, “Advance Directives, Critical Interests, and Dementia Research”, I investigate whether advance directives can be applied in the context of dementia research. Consider, for the sake of argument, the following fictional case. William, a 77-year-old man who has moderate to severe dementia. When he was first […]
Paternalism up a Mountain
“Paternalism” is one of those words that has a hell of a lot of power. On several occasions, I’ve seen it used as a trump to shut down an argument: saying “But that’s paternalism” is, at least sometimes, treated as a way of showing that anyone arguing in favour of the allegedly paternalistic action is […]
On Conflicts of Interest
It’s only a few days since Richie’s paper on providing IVF in the context of global warming was published, but already there’s been a couple of lines of objection to it that have been fairly widespread; I thought it might be worth nodding to one, and perhaps offering an attempt of a defence against the […]
Gaia Doesn’t Care where your Baby Comes From
Guest Post by Dominic Wilkinson, Associate Editor, Journal of Medical Ethics In a provocative paper published today in the Journal of Medical Ethics, US theologian Cristina Richie argues that the carbon cost and environmental impact of population growth in the West should lead to restrictions on artificial reproduction. She points to the substantial carbon emissions that […]
ARTs in a Warming World
There are some people who disagree, but we can take some things as read: there is such a thing as global climate change, it is at least substantially anthropogenic, and there are moral reasons to try to minimise it. With that in mind, how should we think about reproductive technologies? These are techniques whose intent […]
Post Birth Streisand effect?
By David Hunter While I am wary on this blog talking about what we commonly refer to as “The paper that shall not be named” for fear of inciting yet more criticism, complaint and work for myself and Iain there is a certain amount of schadenfreude to be had at the impact three years on […]
Are FIGO’s Regulations Risking the Lives of Pregnant Women?
Guest post by Douwe Verkuyl The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Committee for the Ethical Aspects of Human Reproduction and Women’s Health believes that there is never an indication for a tubal occlusion (TO) to be performed at the time of caesarean section or following a vaginal delivery in cases where this sterilisation has […]