By Esmée Hanna and Glenn Robert Whilst ethical issues relating to the disposal of body parts generally are increasingly discussed (largely prompted by high profile organ retention scandals), what happens in the specific case of amputated limbs has not received much attention. Amputation is however increasingly common, in part due to growing rates of diabetes […]
Latest articles
Alexa, does this look infected? – We need to talk about safely regulating the digitisation of healthcare, now.
By Catriona McMillan. The sale of health technologies for personal use has boomed in the past few years. At-home access to health information, and the means to track one’s health stats, have been criticised for unnecessarily increasing pressure on NHS services, and in some cases risking user safety. Perhaps surprisingly, however, most of these technologies […]
The Subjects of Ectogenesis: Are “Gestatelings” Fetuses, Newborns, or Neither?
By Nick Colgrove Artificial womb technology is not (yet) available for use on human subjects. It may become available in the near future, however. Should artificial womb technology be made available for use on human subjects, one might wonder: What is the nature of the subjects inside of artificial wombs? Are they fetuses, newborns, or […]
Puberty-blocking drugs: the difficulties of conducting ethical research
The ethics of research trials for young people with gender dysphoria are complicated.Billion Photos/Shutterstock Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford and Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford A recent Newsnight programme reported that a major UK puberty-blocking trial is under investigation. Doctors at a London clinic provided drugs to block the development of puberty in young adolescents […]
A Call for True Medical Assistance in Dying for Minors
By Joel L. Gamble, Nathan K. Gamble, Michal Pruski If you ask medical students why they seek to enter the profession, you will hear stories about physicians who made the sick whole. Some felt the call of the Healing Art as they witnessed restoration in a close family member, or experienced it themselves. Though the […]
England’s Opt-Out Policy Consultation – Excluded Organs and Tissues
By Nicola Williams, Laura O’Donovan and Stephen Wilkinson England is about to follow Wales by moving to an ‘opt-out’ system for deceased organ donation. Under such policies individuals are presumed willing to become organ donors after their death unless they have explicitly refused. The new system, also known as ‘deemed’ or ‘presumed’ consent, is expected […]
The bitter end: Which question matters most in disputes about treatment
By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics and Julian Savulescu @Juliansavulescu This week, doctors in France are reported to be withdrawing life-prolonging treatment from Vincent Lambert, a 42 year old French psychiatric nurse, who has been at the centre of a long-running legal battle over his medical treatment. Lambert was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in 2008, […]
Responsibility Over Time and Across Agents
By Rebecca Brown and Julian Savulescu. There is a rich literature on the philosophy of responsibility: how agents come to be responsible for certain actions or consequences; what conditions excuse people from responsibility; who counts as an ‘apt candidate’ for responsibility; how responsibility links to blameworthiness; what follows from deciding that someone is blameworthy. These […]
How should we treat beings of uncertain moral status?
By Julian Koplin and Dominic Wilkinson Advances in stem cell science are making it possible to create new kinds of living beings. Using a technique known as interspecies blastocyst complementation, it may soon be possible to grow human organs inside of human-animal chimeras. Most of the tissues of these chimeric animals would be composed of […]
Physicians as public servants: why physicians have no business discussing religion with patients
By Jake Greenblum & Ryan Hubbard. It is generally agreed that healthy liberal democracies have a robust separation between church and state. However, controversy arises when interpreting the appropriate place of religion in the public sphere, including the proper role of religion in medicine. Just consider the current political debate in the US on medical […]