October 5, 2010
The comedy of “fetal personhood”
A new ad lampoons these anti-abortion initiatives by interpreting them literally. (Salon)
Monthly Archives: October 2010
October 5, 2010
Abortion and euthanasia: was Virginia Ironside right?
Virginia Ironside woke the country up with a start on Sunday morning, when she appeared to be suggesting euthanasia for sick children. She told the BBC’s rather bloodless spiritualism-lite programme Sunday Morning Live that if she had a child who … Read More
October 5, 2010
Defending Transhumanism
The blog Rationally Speaking has just posted two articles about the transhumanist movement, one by Julia Galef that defends transhumanism, and another by Massimo Pigliucci that dismisses transhumanism as “irrelevant,†among other things. (IEET)
October 5, 2010
Reflections on Robert Edwards’ Achievement of the Nobel Prize for Medicine
The following is a commentary from Maureen Condic, PhD, Science Advisor for the Bioethics Defense Fund. She is a friend of CBHD and a recent plenary speaker at Beyond Therapy: Exploring Enhancement and Human Futures: British scientist Robert Edwards, who … Read More
October 4, 2010
Building a Brighter Kid: Consider IVF
Most parents-in-waiting like to daydream that their unborn child might develop a cure for cancer or improve upon the theory of relativity — in short, save the world. Now, new research indicates that your best shot of birthing a brainy … Read More
October 4, 2010
Dark past of Danish disabled
More than 300 mentally handicapped Danes, including children, were lobotomised between 1947 and 1983 and many died from the operation, according to a report in AFP. Historian Jesper Vaczy Kragh outlined to the Danish media the findings of a book … Read More
October 4, 2010
Wellesley professor unearths a horror: Syphilis experiments in Guatemala
Picking through musty files in a Pennsylvania archive, a Wellesley College professor made a heart-stopping discovery: US government scientists in the 1940s deliberately infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea in experiments conducted without the subjects’ permission. (The Boston … Read More
October 4, 2010
Ethical dilemma ‘not an issue’ for S’pore’s scientific community
The ethical dilemma that could arise from human-animal combination stem-cell research is not an issue for the scientific community here, local researchers say. And the likelihood of clinical or research staff pulling out of a human-animal experiment here is minimal, … Read More
October 4, 2010
IVF scientist Robert Edwards wins Nobel prize for medicine
British scientist Robert Edwards, the man who devised the fertility treatment IVF, has been awarded this year’s Nobel prize for medicine. (Mail Online)
October 4, 2010
U-M stem cell milestone advances research, controversy
Four months ago in a laboratory at the University of Michigan, scientists took a cluster of 30 cells from a five-day-old embryo, put it in a Petri dish and helped it grow. (The Detroit News)
October 1, 2010
New Issue of The Heythrop Journal is Now Available
The Heythrop Journal (August 2010) is now available by subscription only. Articles include: “Human Embryos and Human Dignity: Differing Presuppositions in Human Embryo Research in Germnay and Great Britain” by Sibylle Rolf.
October 1, 2010
Discrimination In End Of Life Care Reported
End of life care and counseling are important to anyone near death. However, this care has been found to be discriminatory when such care implementation is compared between white and black patients. All truly benefit from discussions about the final … Read More
October 1, 2010
Scientists overcome hurdles to stem cell alternatives
Scientists have invented an efficient way to produce apparently safe alternatives to human embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, a long-sought step toward bypassing the moral morass surrounding one of the most promising fields in medicine. (Washington Post)
October 1, 2010
Paying Doctors for Patient Performance
Not long ago, a fellow doctor told me that his local health care insurers, in an effort to improve care and rein in costs, had been evaluating physicians and paying them according to their “quality ranking.†With “pay for performance†… Read More
October 1, 2010
Biomechatronics aims to erase the entire concept of ‘disability’
Hugh Herr has made it his mission to eliminate the word “disabled” from our vocabulary when describing people who require assistance of some sort to perform the daily tasks that most people take for granted. Listening to Herr speak here … Read More
