April 26, 2024

Praise for BioEdge

Michael Cook

Hi there,

This week we are highlighting a special issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics about what may be the biggest-ever controversy over an article in an academic journal. This is a paper by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” When it was published in February last year, it provoked much shrill criticism of bioethics as a discipline, not just of infant euthanasia. We were the first to report it, by the way. 

I was pleased to note that we get a guernsey in the discussion. The editor of the journal Bioethics, Udo Schüklenk, said that BioEdge has “a larger real-world impact than most bioethics journals could dream of”. 

Woo hoo!!! High fives all around!!

To be honest, I am quoting Dr Schüklenk – who is not a man to mince words — out of context, as he regards BioEdge’s impact as baneful “agitprop”.

Oh well. Please make up your own mind on this. I’d appreciate any comments. BioEdge does have a background commitment of defending human dignity. This shapes the selection of the news and the angle of the articles. Event though absolute impartiality is impossible, our goal is to present the facts without embellishment and to let readers draw their own conclusions. We’ve tried to restrict opinions and rumination to this message from the editor (which is also available in blog form at Pointed Remarks).

Perhaps I should give a thumbs-up to the Journal of Medical Ethics and its editor Julian Savulescu. I don’t agree with his utilitarian bent, but, from a journalist’s point of view, he does a great job of presenting a wide range of newsworthy topics. They are normally quite readable, even by an agitprop Stakhanovite like myself.

Cheers,

Michael Cook
BioEdge has “a larger real-world impact than most bioethics journals could dream of”.
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