Guest post by Atina Krajewska, Rachel Cahill-O’Callaghan, and Melanie Fellowes The World Health Organisation is currently considering a change in the definition of infertility according to which, it has been reported, “single men and women without medical issues [would] be classed as ‘infertile’, if they do not have children but want to become a parent.” Although […]
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A Hot Take on a Cold Body
It’s good to see Nils’ post about the recent UK cryonics ruling getting shared around quite a bit – so it should. I thought I’d throw in my own voice, too. About 18 months ago, Imogen Jones and I wrote a paper musing on some of the ethical and legal dimensions of Christopher Priest’s The Prestige. […]
Justice Cryogenically Delayed is Justice Denied?
Guest Post by Nils Hoppe Re JS (Disposal of Body) [2016] EWHC 2859 (Fam) This unusual and sad case concerns a court application by a 14 year old girl, JS. In 2015 she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer which proved terminal and, at the time of her application, she was receiving palliative […]
Dissenting from care.data: an analysis of opt out forms
Guest Post: Paraskevas Vezyridis Article: Dissenting from Care.data: An Analysis of Opt-out Forms In our article, which is part of a wider project examining the technical, social and ethical challenges of big data in primary care, we simply wanted to explore how varied opt out forms can be when there is no standardised form available. […]
Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trials of Surgery: Ethical Analysis and Guidelines
Guest Post by Karolina Wartolowska Re: Randomised placebo-controlled trials of surgery: ethical analysis and guidelines [open access] Surgical placebo-controlled randomised controlled trials are, in many ways, like placebo-controlled drug trials. Like in case of drug trials, sometimes, a placebo-controlled design is necessary so that the results are valid and unbiased. Placebo control is usually necessary when a […]
The End is Not What it Seems – Feasibility of Conducting Prospective Research in Critically Ill, Dying Patients.
Guest Post by Amanda Van Beinum Re: Feasibility of conducting prospective observational research on critically ill, dying patients in the intensive care unit Collecting information about how people die in the intensive care unit is important. Observations about what happens during the processes of withdrawal of life sustaining therapies (removal of breathing machines and drugs used to maintain […]
A Eulogy for the UK Donation Ethics Committee
Guest Post by David Shaw Re: The untimely death of the UK Donation Ethics Committee Most people I know want to donate their organs after they die. Why wouldn’t they? If you have to die, you might as well do your best to save several other lives once you’re gone. But organ donation is a […]
Natal Nativism
Scene: the boardroom of a large NHS Trust, somewhere in England. “And so that brings us neatly to the last item on the agenda: passport checks for pregnant women who want a checkup. The thing is, you see, that it turns out that we’ve been providing obstetric care to some women who aren’t actually UK citizens. […]
Victims, Vectors and Villains? Are Those Who Opt Out of Vaccination Morally Responsible for the Deaths of Others?
Guest Post by Euzebiusz Jamrozik, Toby Handfield, Michael J Selgelid Re: Victims, vectors and villains: are those who opt out of vaccination morally responsible for the deaths of others? Who is responsible for the harms caused by an outbreak for vaccine preventable disease? Are those who opt out of vaccination and transmit disease responsible for the resultant harms […]
Amoral Enhancement
Guest Post by Saskia Verkiel Re: Amoral Enhancement A reply to Douglas’ reply to Harris’ reply to Douglas regarding the issue of freedom in cases of biomedical moral enhancement Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could just swallow a pill and become better people? With many aspects of life, growing numbers of people are embracing biomedical […]