By Adrian Villalba, Anna Smajdor, Iain Brassington and Daniela Cutas In our paper, we outline the ethical landscape surrounding the synthesis of human DNA. Only small genomes such as those of bacteria and yeast have been synthesized so far, but the creation of full human genomes in the lab is plausible. The idea of crafting […]
Latest articles
New threats to LGBTQ+ healthcare and medical education
By Rachelle Monteau, Alexis Dickerson and Katherine Mendis. Recent political developments in the United States have raised alarm that health inequity between LGBTQ+ patients and the general population—already a pressing problem—might worsen. Some initiatives specifically limit the provision of medical care to LGBTQ+ patients, while those that undermine social equality are also likely to contribute […]
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill: Many challenges ahead
By Ilaria Bertini. Finally last week, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill drafted by Kim Leadbeater MP has been published ahead of the Second Reading debate and vote on 29 November 2024. The proposed law on physician assisted dying (PAD) is mooted as being one of the strictest in the world in ensuring […]
Would a generational smoking ban create a discriminatory, ‘two-tier’ society?
By Johannes Kniess In the year before the 2024 election, few would have predicted that PM Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy wouldn’t be about taxes or Brexit, but about cigarettes. Under the ‘smoke-free generation’ bill, people born in or after 2009 would never be able to legally buy cigarettes. Those born before that year would remain […]
He Jiankui & Humanity’s Common Heritage
By Richard B. Gibson As many will remember, in 2018, now infamous Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced on YouTube that, using CRISPR/Cas9, he had been (jointly) responsible for creating gene-edited twins called Lulu & Nana. He and his team’s purported aim was to engineer the twins to be resistant to HIV infection. Two days after […]
What is the ground of the moral right to parent our biological children?
By Benjamin Lange. In my recent JME paper, Moral Parenthood: Not Gestational, I challenge the idea that the moral right to parent our biological children should be grounded by appeal to the value of the intimate emotional relationship that gestation facilitates between a newborn and a gestational procreator. This issue is important because it addresses one […]
The War in Gaza and its Effects on Israelis
By Zohar Lederman The ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza (and to a lesser degree in the West Bank) is morally abhorrent and is in clear and undeniable violation of international humanitarian law. The war and its effects on Palestinians have been largely ignored by bioethicists, and the little that has been published is mostly […]
Who deserves a pig heart?
By Johannes Kögel and Georg Marckmann. Ethical criteria are essential for determining which patients should receive a pig heart transplant. These criteria—medical need, capacity to benefit, and patient choice—are designed to ensure a pathway to clinical trials that balances short-term outcomes with the long-term success of the therapy. Xenotransplantation, the transplantation of organs across species […]
Is life an illness? A conceptual approach
By Matti Häyry. Twenty year ago, on 2 August 2004, I published in the Journal of Medical Ethics an article apparently presenting the first modern formulation of the so-called risk argument against having offspring. In commemoration of this formidable moment in history, I wrote a sequel better in line with today’s attention economy. Introduction Illness, […]
How treatment framing can mislead
By Shang Long Yeo Suppose a doctor believes that some treatment best serves a patient’s interests, and knows that framing treatment outcomes in terms of survival rates (‘out of 100 who took the treatment, 90 survive’) rather than death rates (’10 die’) will make it more likely for the patient to consent. Is the doctor […]