July 28, 2025
A New Edition of Christian Bioethics Is Now Available
Christian Bioethics (vol. 31, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
General Bioethics
July 22, 2025
Sarah Morlok Cotton, Quadruplet Who Knew Fame and Suffering, Dies at 95
(New York Times) – She was the last of four identical sisters who were a national sensation even before they began performing onstage. Offstage, they endured abuse and schizophrenia. Sarah Morlok Cotton, the last surviving member of a set of … Read More
July 21, 2025
The Next Thing You Smell Could Ruin Your Life
(Wired) – Millions of people suffer debilitating reactions in the presence of certain scents and chemicals. One scientist has been struggling for decades to understand why—as she battles the condition herself. In 1997, Miller proposed a career-defining theory of how … Read More
July 21, 2025
Bryan Johnson Is Going to Die
(Wired) – Millions of dollars in treatments, supplements, and scans. Immortality through AI. Bryan Johnson’s longevity script has everything—except an ending. Over a 90-minute conversation, Johnson spoke at length about his longevity protocol, his assessment of RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement, … Read More
July 17, 2025
What is chronic venous insufficiency, Trump’s diagnosis?
(NBC News) – President Donald Trump has been diagnosed with a condition that causes blood to pool in his legs after he was examined for “mild swelling in his lower legs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. At … Read More
July 14, 2025
AI for good, with caveats: How a keynote speaker was censored during an international artificial intelligence summit
(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) – Then we started negotiating. I opened my laptop; we started going slide by slide through my talk, removing bits every time. One of the main concerns for them was one of the slides I … Read More
July 11, 2025
The Transhumanist Question
(Christianity Today) – One has only to read the great pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer—who wrote that “life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom”—to be tempted to join the transhumanist project. But whether the goal of … Read More
July 10, 2025
The power of the ‘Influencer General’
(The Hill) – All of this was painfully learned by our one memorable modern Surgeon General, Charles Everett Koop. The New York Times denounced him in an editorial headed “Dr. Unqualified;” a nimbler commentator christened him “Dr. Kook.” He had … Read More
July 3, 2025
CRC Helps Pastors Minister Where Assisted Suicide Is Legal
(Christianity Today) – The Reformed denomination “deplores” the legalization of the practice and offers recommendations for caring for the dying. As assisted suicide continues to grow in Canada and expands in the US, a major Reformed body has moved to … Read More
July 2, 2025
Anne Merriman, ‘Mother of Palliative Care’ in Uganda, Dies at 90
(New York Times) – A medical doctor and former nun, she found an affordable way to expand palliative care in the developing world, bringing pain relief to poor, terminally ill patients. Working as a doctor in Singapore in the 1980s, … Read More
July 2, 2025
Catherine talks candidly of ‘life-changing’ cancer treatment
(BBC) – In January, Catherine announced she was in remission from cancer, which had been diagnosed last year. But her latest comments are a reminder how this is a gradual path to recovery. She said: “You put on a sort … Read More
July 1, 2025
Lucian Leape, Whose Work Spurred Patient Safety in Medicine, Dies at 94
(New York Times) – Despite resistance from the medical establishment, he found systemic ways to reduce errors, paving the way for a global standard. Thousands of lives have been saved. Lucian L. Leape, a surgeon whose insights into medical mistakes … Read More
July 1, 2025
Growing consensus on religious freedom benefits everyone, religious or not
(The Hill) – In an era of heightened polarization, especially in the nation’s capital, it’s rare to find a value that unites Americans across political, generational and ideological divides. But one principle is quietly gaining ground: religious freedom, and not … Read More
June 20, 2025
Pope Leo XIV Urges Tech Executives to Come Up With an Ethical AI Framework
(CNET) – Pope Leo XIV, who took over leadership of the Catholic Church in May, is revealing one area that he’ll be focusing on: artificial intelligence. The Pope has called for tech companies to develop a “superior ethical criterion” against which … Read More
June 20, 2025
Marlee Matlin tells her story in an intimate and groundbreaking documentary
(Associated Press) – The resulting film, “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore” is an intimate look at her life: Growing up in a hearing family; winning the best actress Oscar at 21 for her first movie role in “Children of a … Read More
June 19, 2025
The Real Problem with AI Prayers
(Christianity Today) – A computer’s praise or petition sounds a lot like our human Christianese. That doesn’t make them equivalent. At a recent Gospel Coalition conference, celebrity pastor John Piper told his audience about a task he had given ChatGPT: … Read More
June 18, 2025
How the Opioid Epidemic Changed My Life
(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 10, 2025
Facing a Changing Industry, AI Activists Rethink Their Strategy
(Wired) – As power over artificial intelligence concentrates in a handful of companies, a new report urges advocacy groups to expose the technology’s connection to broader economic struggles. On Tuesday, the AI Now Institute, a think tank that studies the … Read More
June 2, 2025
Harvard Employee Admits to Selling Brains, Human Head and Other Body Parts Stolen from Medical School Morgue
(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
May 30, 2025
Robert Jarvik, 79, Dies; a Designer of the First Permanent Artificial Heart
(New York Times) – Dr. Robert K. Jarvik, the principal designer of the first permanent artificial heart implanted in a human — a procedure that became a subject of great public fascination and fierce debate about medical ethics — died … Read More
May 23, 2025
Meet Cathy Tie, Bride of “China’s Frankenstein”
(MIT Technology Review) – You may not be familiar with Tie, but she’s no stranger to the public spotlight. A former Thiel fellow, she is a partner in the attention-grabbing Los Angeles Project, which promised to create glow-in-the-dark pets. Over … Read More
May 22, 2025
Who’s to Blame When AI Agents Screw Up?
(Wired) – As Google and Microsoft push agentic AI systems, the kinks are still being worked on how agents interact with each other—and intersect with the law. Because agents are meant to act autonomously, the question of who bears responsibility … Read More
May 19, 2025
How a Great Pro-Life Hope Disappointed His Allies
(Christianity Today) – As surgeon general under Ronald Reagan, C. Everett Koop traveled in evangelical circles. But the partnership was always uneasy. Of the Christian conservatives whom Ronald Reagan appointed to high office after winning the presidency in 1980, none … Read More
May 19, 2025
Biden Diagnosed With Metastatic Prostate Cancer
(Wall Street Journal) – Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer just months after he left office, his representatives said Sunday. Biden received the diagnosis of prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone after he was experiencing … Read More
May 12, 2025
Pope Leo XIV lays out vision of papacy and identifies AI as a main challenge for humanity
(Associated Press) – Pope Leo XIV laid out the vision of his papacy Saturday, identifying artificial intelligence as one of the most critical matters facing humanity and vowing to continue with some of the core priorities of Pope Francis. But … Read More
