Is regret enough reason not to have an abortion?
As if the existence of post-abortion trauma exists weren’t controversial enough, an Oxford academic argues in the Journal of Medical Ethics that it makes no...
Human exceptionalism is for the birds
Here’s something we missed about the uniqueness of human beings. In July the Francis Crick Memorial Conference, at Cambridge University, decided that we aren’t as...
State to pay for Massachusetts murderer’s sex change
A Massachusetts man with gender identity disorder murdered his wife in 1990 when she discovered him wearing her clothes. He was sentenced to life in...
Mind that gallows humour!
Commonly used palliative care practices are often misconstrued as euthanasia or murder, even though the treating physician may have no intention of killing a patient....
“Don’t let them put you under!”
Coma is a recent four-hour TV mini-series based on the 1978 Michael Crichton thriller about a young medical student who discovers that something sinister is...
Is it better to be minimally conscious than vegetative?
The interesting question posed by two Oxford utilitarians, Dominic Wilkinson and Julian Savulescu in the Journal of Medical Ethics recently is this: “Is it better...
Sperm precursor cells created in lab
The moment when scientists will be able to create artificial sperm from a skin cell is drawing closer. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have...
US stem cell scientist punished for fraud
Stem cell research fraud continues, though not as spectacularly as in the lab of disgraced South Korean Hwang Woo-suk. A Harvard University researcher, Shane Mayack,...