September 25, 2025
(Popular Science) – In 1907, Duncan MacDougall put dying patients on a scale. MacDougall hoped to discover whether a soul had mass with his macabre experiment, and if so, how much. His tests with patients, later known as the 21 … Read More
September 16, 2025
(Nature) – Developers of griefbots say that they help people by allowing them to commune with recreations of the dead, but others say that the technology is fraught with danger. “Saying goodbye to Dadbot was surprisingly hard,” she says. “When … Read More
August 27, 2025
(NPR) – The digital afterlife industry, which manages a person’s digital assets after their death, is expected to quadruple in size to nearly $80 billion over the next decade. That includes the creation of deadbots. The more immersive these bots … Read More
August 5, 2025
(NPR) – Tennessee is gearing up for an execution on Tuesday that experts say would likely mark the first time a man has been put to death with a working defibrillator in his chest. Gov. Bill Lee declined Monday to … Read More
August 5, 2025
(Washington Post via MSN) – Artificial intelligence tools are not just reshaping how we work, learn and live. They’re also changing what happens after we die, as families and funeral homes seek help in creating tributes and eulogies to define … Read More
July 31, 2025
(New York Times) – But by artificially circulating blood and oxygen, the procedure can reanimate a lifeless heart. Some doctors and ethicists find the procedure objectionable because, in reversing the stoppage of the heart, it seems to nullify the reason … Read More
July 30, 2025
(The Conversation) – Since the documentary first aired, the business of digitally resurrecting the deceased has grown significantly. People are now using AI to create “grief bots,” which are simulations of deceased loved ones that the living can converse with. … Read More
July 25, 2025
(New York Times) – Therapists are cautious about sharing personal information. When they fall ill or die unexpectedly, the shock can be shattering. Ethics guidelines require psychologists to make preparations in case they become incapacitated or die, appointing an executor … Read More
July 21, 2025
(The Verge) – A biodegradable casket made from mushrooms is one way to limit waste. “I’m probably the only architect who created a final home,” Bob Hendrikx tells The Verge. Tombs and catacombs aside, Hendrikx might be the only one … Read More
July 18, 2025
(SF Gate) – The living nightmare of Tonya Walker’s disappearance and death is part of an alleged pattern of wrongdoing by a multibillion-dollar health care company that operates dozens of hospitals across California. Dignity Health has been accused of “callous, reckless, … Read More
June 25, 2025
(The Atlantic) – To be clear, Smith, as a brain-dead patient, was legally and medically deceased, so precepts about doing good and avoiding harm would not have applied to her, at least clinically speaking. But the ethical principle of autonomy … Read More
June 20, 2025
(The Guardian) – Terminally ill people in England and Wales are to be given the right to an assisted death in a historic societal shift that will transform end-of-life care. After months of argument, MPs narrowly voted in favour of … Read More
June 18, 2025
(Plough) – Tom Andrew started out as a pediatrician but became a forensic pathologist, initially serving the City of New York before being appointed Chief Medical Examiner for the State of New Hampshire. When he had been serving in this … Read More
June 12, 2025
(The Telegraph) – Flush and bone rituals proposed as a new, ‘gentler’ funerary method People could soon be able to choose to be boiled and flushed down the drain instead of cremated or buried. A consultation on funerary methods by … Read More
June 10, 2025
(The Atlantic) – As a professional writer, my first thought was that this would be unnecessary, at best. At worst, it would be an outrage. The philosopher Martin Heidegger held that someone’s death is a thing that is truly their … Read More
June 9, 2025
(Wired) – A federal investigation found a Kentucky nonprofit pushed hospital workers toward surgery despite signs of revival in patients. Four years ago, an unconscious Kentucky man began to awaken as he was about to be removed from life support … Read More
June 6, 2025
(Care) – Dr Philip Nitschke, inventor of the Sarco suicide pod, has unveiled plans for a controversial new device: an implantable ‘kill switch’ that would allow people diagnosed with dementia to end their lives at a later stage, regardless of … Read More
June 6, 2025
(The Spectator) – The hospice movement is one of the great achievements of post-war Britain. Inspired by the doctor Cicely Saunders, who in effect founded the field of palliative care, it has united cutting-edge research with a profound understanding of … Read More
June 5, 2025
(Ms.) – In 28 states, if you’re pregnant, the government can ignore your end-of-life wishes—no matter what you’ve written. Reproductive freedom advocates filed a lawsuit, Vernon v. Kobach, on May 29 challenging the constitutionality of a Kansas law that automatically invalidates a person’s end-of-life treatment … Read More
June 3, 2025
(Daily Mail) – A euthanasia advocate who was quizzed by murder detectives after the death of a woman using a controversial Sarco euthanasia pod last year has died by assisted suicide, it was announced yesterday. Dr Florian Willet, 47, was … Read More
June 2, 2025
(New York Times) — When Canada’s first MAID law, Bill C-14, passed in 2016, it was reserved for those who were over 18, eligible for health care and mentally competent to consent to death. They needed to have a “serious … Read More
June 2, 2025
(People) — A Harvard employee accused of stealing body parts from a morgue at the university and selling them for a profit entered a guilty plea to a federal charge of interstate transport of human remains this week. Cedric Lodge, … Read More
June 2, 2025
(Daily Mail) — A controversial amendment allowing assisted suicide is making its way through the Illinois state legislature as representatives snuck the measure into a bill on sanitary food preparation. Illinois House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel, a Democrat representing Evanston, … Read More
May 21, 2025
Bioethics (vol. 39, no. 4, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
May 16, 2025
(NPR) – A pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead after a medical emergency has been on life support for three months to let the fetus grow enough to be delivered, a move her family says a hospital … Read More
