Guest Post: Sarah Bates Article: The Ethics Liaison Program: Building a Moral Community As challenges to health care delivery increase over time, it is becoming more and more important for hospitals to maintain a strong institution-wide moral culture. But the common model of employing one or a few “ethicists” can lead to the misconception that […]
Category: Guest Post
Are Single Men in the UK Entitled to have a Baby using Fertility Treatment?
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sex and Other Sins: Public Morality, Public Health, and Funding PrEP
Guest Post by Nathan Emmerich In the UK, a recent high-court decision[1] has reignited the debate about whether or not Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) should be provided to those who are deemed to be at high-risk of contracting HIV.[2] Despite the fact that NHS England is now appealing,[3] it was a fairly innocuous decision: having suggested […]
A World Without Bioethicists? On Sally Phillip’s “A World Without Down’s”
Guest Post by Nathan Emmerich, Queen’s University Belfast On Wednesday night, BBC2 broadcast a documentary entitled ‘A World Without Down’s Syndrome?’ Even if you did not see the programme itself, you may have heard about it on the radio, read some of the commentary published over the past week, or spotted it on Twitter under the […]
Further Clarity on Co-operation and Morality
Guest Post by David S. Oderberg, University of Reading Re: Further clarity on co-operation and morality The 2014 US Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was a landmark case on freedom of religion and conscience in the USA. The so-called ‘contraceptive mandate’ of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) requires employers to provide health insurance […]