Article: I love my children: am I racist? On the wish to be biologically related to one’s children Author: Ezio Di Nucci, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Is it morally legitimate to want biological children? There is a general argument about the legitimacy of bringing new people into this world; but there is also a more specific […]
Latest articles
Guest Post: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse.
Authors: Joan McCarthy, Katherine O’Donnell, Louise Campbell, Dolores Dooley Paper: Ethical arguments for access to abortion services in the Republic of Ireland: recent developments in the public discourse Some people argue that abortion is immoral, yet others don’t think so. Some think that abortion is immoral in general, and in the abstract, and yet judge that […]
Guest Post: Transgressing nature? Ethics and artificial gametes
Authors: Anna Smajdor, Daniela Cutas and Tuija Takala Article: Artificial gametes, the unnatural and the artefactual Increasingly, science offers new ways for human beings to design, create and control living organisms. Among other avenues of research, work towards the creation of ‘artificial’ (or, as they used to be called, ‘synthetic’) gametes has attracted considerable media attention […]
Why the Parents of Both Charlie Gard and More Recently Alfie Evans Should Have Been Allowed to Decide About Their Sons’ Best Interests
Guest post by Raanan Gillon Re: Why the parents of Charlie Gard should have been allowed to decide on his best interests. This blog briefly summarises and adds to my paper due to appear in the JME’s forthcoming symposium on the case of Charlie Gard[1]. Because of the widespread unpopularity of my views amongst doctors, […]
The Children Missing from Nelson’s Column
By Iain Brassington There’s a cliché that says that hard cases make bad law. Truth be told, there’s a whole list of things that make, or make for, bad law. Highly visible public protests make for bad law. Lack of measured thought makes for bad law. Journalistic pressure makes for bad law. And anything – anything […]
Guest Post: Saving the baby, or the family?
Authors: Kristine Husøy Onarheim, Ole Frithjof Norheim, Ingrid Miljeteig Papers: Newborn health benefits or financial risk protection? An ethical analysis of a real-life dilemma in setting without universal health coverage. Imagine a two-day-old baby falling sick with a severe infection. Then imagine that the parents have no savings available, and cannot afford the necessary medical […]
Guest Post: Getting Sex Rights Wrong: Improving our Conversations about Sexual Exclusion and Disability
Author: Dr. Alida Liberman, University of Indianapolis Paper: Disability, Sex Rights, and the Scope of Sexual Exclusion People who have disabilities are often sexually excluded or marginalized: positive portrayals of disabled sexuality in fiction or news media are rare, and people with disabilities are often seen as asexual or disregarded as viable sexual (for example, a […]
Protection by Exclusion? Capacity as a Gatekeeper to Research
Authors: Victoria Shepherd, Richard Griffith, Mark Sheehan, Fiona Wood, Kerenza Hood Paper: Healthcare professionals’ understanding of the legislation governing research involving adults lacking mental capacity in England and Wales: a national survey People who lack capacity to provide informed consent are often excluded from medical research, leading to concerns that there is an evidence-bias in the […]
“An intermittent safeguard for health”
Guest post by Matteo Winkler, École des hautes études commerciales de Paris I thought I’d drop you a few lines to explain how I view the Italian intervention on the case of Alfie Evans. On 24 April, the Italian government, acting upon a proposal presented by the Minister of Interior Marco Minniti, resolved to grant Alfie […]
Alfie Evans: Please, just stop.
By Iain Brassington Last summer, as the Charlie Gard saga was unfolding, was a slightly strange time to be a bioethicist. Perhaps fortuitously, I was out of the country as matters began to gather pace; I was able to post a couple of blog posts (like this and this), but could generally keep my head down […]