When John Sentamu stood up in the House of Lords a couple of weeks ago and spoke about the need for the NHS to concern itself with “spiritual” needs – and illustrated his claim with an anecdote about something resembling an exorcism – the response from a lot of the blogosphere was, at its friendliest, one […]
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Personhood in Mississippi
Phew, I thought, when I heard that Measure 26, the proposal to redefine “personhood” to cover the unborn, had been thrown out by the electorate of Mississippi. To catch up: the prosaically-named piece of legislation would have amend[ed] the Mississippi Constitution to define the word “person” or “persons”, as those terms are used in Article III of […]
Discovering Consciousness in the “Permanently Unconscious”: What Should We Do?
Comment on “Bedside detection of awareness in the vegetative state: a cohort study” by Damian Cruse, Srivas Chennu, Camille Chatelle, Tristan A Bekinschtein, Davinia Fernández-Espejo, John D Pickard, Steven Laureys, Adrian M Owen Published in The Lancet, online Nov 10. Cruse and colleagues founds evidence of some kind of consciousness in 3 out of 16 […]
Following on from Last Week’s Post…
… I can’t resist this, from SMBC: Except that I’d want to insert the word “not” before the antepenultimate word. […]
C-Sections on Demand? Not Quite…
Stephen Latham has picked up a lead about NICE guidelines on the provision of caesarian sections: An update of a new guidance document being developed by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellenct (“NICE”) would permit caesarian section on maternal request, even when there are no medical indications for the procedure. […] The new […]
I Met a Relativist, and I’m Baffled
Until fairly recently, I thought I’d met people who could be described as moral relativists. But I recently met someone who’s made me wonder whether they were the real deal. The “relativists” I’d met previously were, broadly, people who make the claim that moral statements do not have the same universal applicability as statements that […]
Organs and Payment: cui bono?
Dipping in and out of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ recent report on organ donation (available in various forms from this page), I’ve been struck by a couple of things. One is that the Council is painfully keen to maintain its distance from the idea that organs – especially those from live donors – could […]
Why Use Close Genes?
Real life showing signs of coming back under control, it’s nice to be back blogging again. Hopefully I’ll be up to speed soon. To get back into the swing of things, there’s an interesting post from Ole Martin Moen on the Practical Ethics blog. It’s only short, so I’ll reproduce almost fully here. Today, if […]
Exporting and Using Medical Equipment
A student writes: I am a 5th Year Medical Student involved in a charity organisation that collects medical goods that are recycled/past expiry dates but still in good condition for re-use/excess from stocks, and aims to provide more impoverished clinics and hospitals abroad with these goods through students’ electives. I have been trying to find […]
Public Lecture: Mary Midgley on Death and the Human Animal
Via the Centre for Medical Humanities blog: Royal Institute of Philosophy Public Lecture Mary Midgley – Newcastle University Death and the Human Animal Wednesday 19th October 2011, 5pm – 7pm (freshments available from 5pm) The Henry Dyson room, the college of St Hild and St Bede, Durham. The abstract’s below the fold. […]