Have embryonic stem cells crashed and burned?
This is the way the joyride ends: Not with a bang but a whimper. An elevated epigraph seems appropriate for the final act of a...
Austrian restrictions on IVF upheld
The European Court of Human Rights has upheld an Austrian ban on sperm and ova donations. By a vote of 13 to 4, the Court’s...
Canadian expert report endorses euthanasia
A lengthy report on euthanasia commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) has strongly recommended the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. The six-person...
British Columbia’s supreme court to hear assisted suicide challenge
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has launched a constitutional challenge to a ban on assisted suicide. It is representing several plaintiffs, including Gloria Taylor,...
Waste not, want not
The editor of the leading journal Bioethics, Udo Schulenk regards capital punishment as a “barbaric practice”, it seems a shame to waste potentially life-saving organs...
National self-sufficiency in organ donation is essential, say experts
Leading transplant surgeons have published an article in The Lancet calling upon governments to adopt a “new paradigm of self-sufficiency” so that patients stop seeking...
Killing the willing
On Thursday (Oct 20), 38-year-old Christopher Johnson was executed by lethal injection in an Alabama prison after only four years on death row. The average...
Embryonic stem cell trial to begin in UK
An American company, Advanced Cell Technology, has been cleared by UK regulators to begin a clinical trial for a degenerative disease of the eye which...
Italian murderer’s sentence reduced after brain scans
For the second time in two years an Italian court has reduced the sentence of a convicted murderer because of abnormal brain scans. For the...
What happened to hug-a-hoodie?
Hi there, Like many of you, I have been following from afar the London riots, with spectacular scenes of young people looting their trophies of...
Can you morally enhance a hoodie?
A Google search for “London+riots+bioethics” yielded nothing of any value. But future discussions about how to respond to mass hooliganism may well require bioethicists. At...
Tell kids early, says report on sperm donation
One of the many ideological battlegrounds in bioethics is whether children are harmed if they are the offspring of sperm donors. A well-publicised report last...