People with advanced cancer tend to get more aggressive care at the end of life and spend more time in the intensive care unit if they receive spiritual support from their religious communities, according to a new study. (Reuters)

A major survey of religious opinion shows that large majorities of believers are in favour of legalising assisted dying. The poll, carried out by YouGov for the Westminster Faith Debates and involving nearly 4,500 people, reveals that only among Muslims and Baptists are there majorities against a change in the law that prohibits assisted suicide. Majorities of Anglicans, Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Methodists and Pentecostalists are in favour of changing the law. (The Guardian)

Clerics here greeted stem-cell researchers in an unusual conference at which the Catholic Church sought to show what the cardinal who organized the meeting called the “necessary union between science and faith.” Hundreds of scientists, including 2012 Nobel laureate John B. Gurdon, spoke at the three-day event, the fruit of a joint venture between the church and the U.S. nonprofit Stem for Life Foundation. (The Wall Street Journal)

Many of us have friends and relatives who have born children via IVF. But the process as described by the couples who have been through the complicated and expensive procedures, can be more than a little dismaying. (Forbes)

The Vatican on Thursday will organize a conference to promote adult stem cell research as an alternative to research using destroyed human embryos, which is considered by the Roman Catholic Church as deeply unethical and less effective. (AFP)

And now, with the release of The Healing Cell: How the Greatest Revolution in Medical History Is Changing Your Life, the Catholic Church has given its stamp of approval on adult stem cell research by discussing the many ways these therapies work for the greater good. (Fox News)

From the Vatican to Buenos Aires, Catholics worldwide rejoiced when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became the new pope. (CNN)

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday rejected the latest White House proposal on health insurance coverage of contraceptives, saying it did not offer enough safeguards for religious hospitals, colleges and charities that objected to providing such coverage for their employees. (New York Times)

Bioethics (Vol. 26 Issue 9) is now available online and in print.  Articles include questions about religion, enhancment.  A large portion of the issue is dedicated to a debate over homeopathy.

• Human Enhancement And Sexual Dimorphism By Rob Sparrow
• ‘They Say Islam Has A Solution For Everything, So Why Are There No Guidelines For This?’ Ethical Dilemmas Associated With The Births And Deaths Of Infants With Fatal Abnormalities From A Small Sample Of Pakistani Muslim Couples In Britain By Alison Shaw
• For Homeopathy: A Practising Physician’s Perspective by Richard Moskowitz
• Is Homeopathy Really ‘Morally And Ethically Unacceptable’? A Critique Of Pure Scientism by Lionel Milgrom And Kate Chatfield
• Homeopathy Is Unscientific And Unethical by Kevin Smith

Journal of Medical Ethics (Vol. 38 Issue 11, November 1, 2012) is now available in print and online.

Articles include:

• Evaluating a patient’s request for life-prolonging treatment: an ethical framework by Eva C Winkler, Wolfgang Hiddemann, Georg Marckmann (full text available)
• Jehovah’s Witnesses and autonomy: honouring the refusal of blood transfusions by Gregory L Bock
• Ethical considerations for performing decompressive craniectomy as a life-saving intervention for severe traumatic brain injury by Stephen Honeybul, Grant Gillett, Kwok Ho, Christopher Lind

Ireland awaits a September report on its abortion laws by a European Court of Human Rights panel of experts at a time of rising political tensions over the issue and a backdrop of steep declines in the popularity of religion. (Forbes)

Technology and Human Flourishing
2012 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
October 25-27, 2012

Baylor University Institute for Faith and Learning
http://www.baylor.edu/ifl/index.php?id=88447

Arthur Caplan, the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, recalls a case of a man who had beaten his six-month-old child to death. It was a horror the mother simply could not accept. (ABC News)

Symposium on Judaism, Medicine, and the Formation of Clinicians

September 10, 2012
Swift Hall, The University of Chicago
To register for the conference, visit: https://pmr.uchicago.edu/events/judaism-and-medicine-symposium

A group of Orthodox rabbis warned Wednesday that the ancient Jewish practice of infant male circumcision could face further restrictions in Europe after some hospitals in Austria and Switzerland suspended the procedure by citing a German court ruling that it could amount to criminal bodily harm. (Washington Post)

In Williamsburg, a bustling Brooklyn enclave across the East River from Manhattan, a sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews dresses in garb common to 18th- and 19th-century Europe and adheres to even more-ancient religious traditions. Yet they are wrestling with the most modern of questions: When it comes to genetic testing, how much does a person need to know? (Wall Street Journal)

The Obama administration’s decision requiring church-affiliated employers to cover birth control was bound to cause an uproar among Roman Catholics and members of other faiths, no matter their beliefs on contraception. (Washington Post)

Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (Volume 8, Issue 4) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

• “Considering the “Born-Alive” Rule and Possession of Sperm Following Death” by Bernadette Richards, Bill Madden & Tina Cockburn.

• “Religion and Bioethics: Can We Talk?” by William E. Stempsey.

• “Toward a Sociology of Conflict of Interest in Medical Research” by Sarah Winch & Michael Sinnott.

Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday spoke out in favour of adult stem cell research and called for any ensuing treatments to benefit all who need the care regardless of their financial means. (AFP)

An international conference opens in Rome Wednesday devoted to medical applications of adult stem cells. (USA Today)

In Pakistan, family planning is an uncomfortable topic fraught with religious overtones. But in one of Asia’s fastest-growing populations, a story of women giving birth challenges stereotypes, including what Islam has to say about women’s health and family planning. (NPR)