It’s very easy for a European to feel very smug about socialised medicine. Maybe the American system isn’t as bad as all that. Maybe we should be a bit more open about its merits. And maybe we should, in the process, ignore cases like that of JoAnn Knutson. Knutson was 72, and had a fall […]
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Killing, Letting Die, and Epistemology
David Shoemaker has an interesting post on PEASoup about the epistemology of advance directives. Starting from a fairly standard thought-experiment about an older, dementing person who wants to accept treatment that her younger, pre-demented person had refused, he adds to the standard metaphysical arguments a claim that the real puzzle for ADs isn’t metaphysical, it’s […]
It is official – Ethicists will still be here in 20 years time
The UK government sponsored science web-site for young people Science: [So what? So everything] has paid some futurologists to come up with 20 new jobs that will exist in 20 years time. Among the nano-medics and avatar managers you can also find the ‘New science’ ethicist’ described in the following way: “‘New science’ ethicist As […]
This may be the last post I ever make on this blog…
Saturday morning, 30th January 2010, I – along with many other people – will be taking a massive overdose. As it happens, I’ll be doing so in a seminar room at the Wellcome Trust, so there will probably be lots of medical sorts nearby. I’ll tell them not to intervene. I may even encourage them to […]
The ethics of Elderly Mums in the News
Daniel Sokol has written this thoughtful piece about the yuck factor and Elderly Mums conceiving children late in life via IVF. […]
Questions, questions…
In response to the post below about circumcision, “IntactByDefault” asked a number of questions. I think that they merit a thread of their own, although I’ve touched on some of the issues before. Is it not the case that, short of legislation, the role of bioethicists is to put a check on the potentially unethical […]
The Freethinker: Circumcision “should be abhorred”
Someone once told me that, if you want a paper to be heard by a large, fractious audience, make sure it’s about circumcision. Peter Breibart considers it over at The Freethinker, and he’s not a happy bunny. You may have heard that there are medical advantages for circumcision – and it is true that the […]
Obituary – Dr Jennifer Gunning
It is with great sorrow that I bring you news of the death of Dr Jennifer Gunning last week. Jenny was my colleague for more than 5 years at Cardiff University and was instrumental in setting up the Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS). Jenny was educated as a structural biologist and later went […]
A Fish on a Petri Dish
Not so long ago, I heard a research scientist talking about the work he was doing and its context in the discipline. He was looking at a particular set of genes that were implicated in cancer, and was interested in manipulating those genes as a means of controlling tumor formation. He wanted to work on […]
Welfare, Principles, and an Unexpected Attack
First up, this may seem like a bit of a diversion from JME core concerns, but – as I hope will become clear – it has to do with moral philosophy, so that’s enough of a link. Obviously, news for the last week or so has been dominated by the earthquake in Haiti and its […]