California case threatens doctors’ conscientious objection
Lesbian claims discrimination in fertility treatmentThe California Supreme Court is having a busy time with social and bioethics issues lately. After deciding that same sex...
Is human dignity a stupid idea?
Harvard professor Steven Pinker says soIn the minds of most people, human dignity must surely be a cornerstone of bioethics. But as BioEdge has often...
Claims by Irish bioethics council attacked
Embryo rights not a religious dogma The Irish Council for Bioethics recently recommended by a unanimous vote that frozen IVF embryos could be destroyed for...
Swiss goldfish to be protected against abuse of their dignity
Moves to protect dignity of plants, tooSwitzerland is well on its way to becoming the most dignified country in the world, after its federal parliament...
Irish experts back embryo research
And fail to oppose cloning and egg marketsThe Irish government's bioethics experts have recommended that it legalise research on "supernumerary", or spare, IVF embryos, even...
Human dignity “shattered”, says Pope
New biotechnologies treat people as things In his latest comments on the dark side of scientific progress, Pope Benedict XVI has said that embryonic stem...
If ethics committees were a drug, would it be approved?
Slow, ponderous and ineffective, say doctors Although American hospitals are required to have ethics committees, doctors shun them. According to a survey published last year,...
Norwegian doctors “thick as thieves”, claims ethicist
Anger over scientist censured for rebuking colleagues in media In a stinging attack on his colleagues, a leading British-Norwegian ethicist has alleged that the Norwegian...
Yamanaka expands on ethical implications of stem cell discovery
Dangers in fertility methods and shonky cures The Japanese scientist who created pluripotent stem cells without destroying embryos, Shinya Yamanaka, of Kyoto University, has expanded...
Ethics sparked stem cell discovery
Shinya Yamanaka had qualms about embryo destruction Ethical qualms moved Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka to work on reprogramming, his stunning recent breakthrough in stem cell...
Scrap Hippocratic Oath, say Italian doctors
Ancient oath bans abortion and euthanasiaSome senior Italian doctors have called for the Hippocratic Oath, which all doctors take at the beginning of their career,...
Updated oaths breached, too
Study finds that doctors often breach codes of medical professionalismA few years ago, in an attempt to update the Hippocratic Oath to reflect dilemmas about...