April 7, 2025
A New Edition of Christian Bioethics Is Now Available
Christian Bioethics (vol. 31, no. 1, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
General Bioethics
April 3, 2025
Overlooked No More: Katharine McCormick, Force Behind the Birth Control Pill
(New York Times) – She used her wealth strategically to expand opportunities for women, underwriting the development of the pill and supporting the suffrage movement. Katharine Dexter McCormick, who was born to a life of wealth, which she compounded through … Read More
April 1, 2025
Yuval Noah Harari: ‘How Do We Share the Planet With This New Superintelligence?’
(Wired) – The academic and author discusses what to expect from the singularity, the need for AI self-correcting mechanisms, and what hope there is for superintelligence safeguarding democracy. Israeli historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens became an international … Read More
March 31, 2025
Humanizing Medicine
(Plough) – In Baltimore, the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing gets med students talking. Studying medicine forces students in health professions to grapple directly with philosophical questions. These include questions about the nature of being human, the essence of … Read More
March 27, 2025
Bill Gates: Within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers—humans won’t be needed ‘for most things’
(NBC Bay Area) – Over the next decade, advances in artificial intelligence will mean that humans will no longer be needed “for most things” in the world, says Bill Gates. That’s what the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist told comedian … Read More
March 17, 2025
Goodbye, church… Hello, Wellness Industrial Complex!
(NPR) – America is a deeply spiritual nation. Over 70% of us say that we feel spiritual in some way. But – at the same time – we’re getting less religious. So for people who are spiritual-but-not-religious – what’s replacing … Read More
March 14, 2025
The Silicon Valley Christians Who Want to Build ‘Heaven on Earth’
(Wired) – Is work religion, or is religion work? Both. The hour-long discussion was part of a series of ticketed gatherings organized by ACTS 17 Collective, a nonprofit founded last year by Stephens’ wife, health care startup executive Michelle Stephens. … Read More
March 10, 2025
Nuffield Council on Bioethics publishes final report from in-depth exploration of public views on assisted dying in England
(Nuffield Council on Bioethics) – A new report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) combines detailed insights from England’s first Citizens’ Jury on assisted dying and two nationally representative surveys of 2000 people to provide a timely and comprehensive … Read More
March 10, 2025
The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer
(The Verge) – ChatGPT has a trolley problem problem. ChatGPT’s ethics framework, which is probably the most extensive outline of a commercial chatbot’s moral vantage point, was bad for my blood pressure. First of all, lip service to nuance aside, … Read More
March 3, 2025
Prolific blood donor who saved 2.4 million babies dies at 88
(NBC News) – An Australian man credited with saving more than 2 million babies through decades of regular blood and plasma donations has died at age 88. James Harrison, whose blood contained a rare antibody, died in his sleep Feb. … Read More
March 3, 2025
Former NIH director Francis Collins retires
(Axios) – Former National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins unexpectedly retired on Friday, writing in a statement that employees of the government’s biomedical research institution “deserve the utmost respect and support of all Americans.” Why it matters: The noted … Read More
February 28, 2025
Rose Girone, Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 113
(New York Times) – She fled Nazi Germany in 1939 with her husband and baby only to be forced into a Jewish ghetto in Shanghai. Still, she would often say, “Aren’t we lucky?” Ms. Girone was believed to be the … Read More
February 24, 2025
Suspect in Insurance C.E.O. Killing Creates Website as Support Floods In
(New York Times) – Luigi Mangione faced a hearing on Friday as supporters planned a rally outside a Manhattan courthouse. Some Americans have found a hero in the man accused of vigilante murder. Supporters, some of whom have championed his … Read More
February 19, 2025
Vatican authorities say the pope now has pneumonia in both lungs. How worrying is that?
(Associated Press) – Vatican officials have said Pope Francis has developed pneumonia in both lungs, further complicating his recovery. The 88-year-old pontiff was hospitalized Friday after a weeklong bout of bronchitis worsened. On Monday, doctors said he had developed a mix … Read More
February 4, 2025
The man who revealed Auschwitz’s atrocities to the world
(BBC) – Auschwitz was established in 1940 when Nazi Germany opened a new camp complex in Oświęcim in southern Poland to hold prisoners. What began as a political prison of Polish nationals evolved into a death factory of Europe’s Jews, … Read More
February 3, 2025
NBA Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade Reveals Kidney Cancer Diagnosis
(MedPage Today) – Basketball Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade talked for the first time yesterday about his surgery for kidney cancer in December 2023. During an episode of “The WY Network” podcast, Wade revealed that he underwent a partial nephrectomy, … Read More
January 30, 2025
Loretta Ford, ‘Mother’ of the Nurse Practitioner Field, Dies at 104
(New York Times) – She transformed nursing by making it an area of clinical practice and research and recasting nurses as colleagues of doctors, not assistants. Loretta Ford, who co-founded the first academic program for nurse practitioners in 1965, then … Read More
January 28, 2025
Vatican Warns AI Could Undermine ‘Foundations Of Society’
(Barron’s) – The Vatican published a new text on artificial intelligence (AI) Tuesday, warning the tool could destroy the trust on which societies are built, while humans become “cogs in a machine”. Pope Francis, regularly a victim of fake news … Read More
January 27, 2025
Auschwitz: 80 years after its liberation, three survivors tell their stories
(The Guardian) – Monday 27 January is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Three survivors, two of whom were interned there as teenagers, tell Kate Connolly their stories. Before the Nazis came … Read More
January 21, 2025
Moral resilience
(Aeon) – Nurses experience deep suffering when they can’t act according to their moral compass. Our research shows a way forward While physicians and surgeons are not exempt from moral suffering, nurses are especially vulnerable to it. Due to the … Read More
January 20, 2025
Former head of Planned Parenthood Cecile Richards has died
(NPR) – Cecile Richards, a prominent advocate for women’s rights and other progressive causes, died Monday. In a statement, her family confirmed her death, saying she passed away at home, “surrounded by family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie.” (Read More)
January 16, 2025
How Pepperdine University Is Helping Fight the LA Fires
(Christianity Today) – Even as wildfires burn neighborhoods nearby, destroying the homes of some faculty and students, Pepperdine University is starting its spring semester by helping local firefighters in Los Angeles. With firefighters in the area facing water shortages, the … Read More
January 15, 2025
The Princess of Wales says her cancer is in remission
(NPR) – The Princess of Wales revealed Tuesday that her cancer is in remission after an emotional visit to the hospital where she received treatment last year. In a statement on social media, the princess offered her heartfelt thanks to … Read More
January 8, 2025
At the Intersection of A.I. and Spirituality
(New York Times) – Modern religious leaders are experimenting with A.I. just as earlier generations examined radio, television and the internet. For centuries, new technologies have changed the ways people worship, from the radio in the 1920s to television sets … Read More
January 7, 2025
You Can’t Optimize Your Way to Being a Good Person
(Vox) – We’re painfully aware that we are vulnerable, fallible creatures. Our shame about that is reflected in Western religious traditions: The Bible tells us that upon first creating the world, God “saw that it was good,” but then became … Read More
