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Catholic bishops condemn France’s first ‘bebe medicament’
Last month, doctors in France announced the arrival of the country’s first so-called ‘saviour sibling’. Born to parents of Turkish origin, Umut Talha (Turkish for ‘our hope’) was conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This technique, in conjunction with Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing, commonly known as ‘tissue-typing’, has enabled
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The patient vanishes
by Dominic Wilkinson If a patient’s family refuse to allow withdrawal of breathing machines should doctors provide long-term support in an intensive care unit for a patient who is clinically brain dead? Should doctors provide heart-lung bypass (ECMO) for a child with anencephaly? Should doctors perform a tracheostomy and provide a long-term breathing machine for
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Libya and Moral Responsibility
Much of the ongoing debate about Libya has rested on what I believe to the mistaken philosophical premise that the United States, or any other potential intervening party, becomes more morally responsible for the fate of Libya if it chooses to intervene than if it doesn’t. Ross Douthat presents the most sophisticated defense in this
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Murder in an English Village
Midsomer Murders is an ITV drama based around English village life: it pulls in millions of viewers and has been running for over a decade. The co-creator of the series has just been suspended for saying he deliberately kept ethnic minorities out of the series. “It wouldn’t be an English village with them”. Cue outrage
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A tale of two reactors
Right now, by sheer chance I am sitting in the same chair, in the same place in Stockholm, as when I first heard the news about the Chernobyl accident. But today it is the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan that has had an explosion.There are interesting lessons in how the two disasters have been playing
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Galliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech
Despite the protestations of Albert Sydner, the father of a young soldier killed in Iraq, the American Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Westboro Baptist’s right to picket military funerals. The religious group has demonstrated at 200 funerals, sporting events, and concerts, claiming that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are god’s way
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How to Stop the Medical Killing Spree
According to a recent study, around 350 patients die in Australian hospitals every two weeks. The figure would be expected to be much higher in the UK. Prof Jeff Richardson, from Monash University, appropriately said, “The issue of adverse events in the Australian health system should dominate all others. However, it would be closer to
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Does euthanizing animals lead to the devaluing of human life?
Not long ago a study on British veterinarian suicide rates [Bartram, D.J. and Baldwin, D.S., ‘Veterinary surgeons and suicide: influences, opportunities and research directions’, Veterinary Record 162(2): 36-40] received a bit of media attention when it reported that veterinarians in Britain have a suicide mortality rate that is four times that of the general population
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Should Conservative Christians be Allowed to Care for Our Children?
Eunice and Owen Johns are Christian Pentecostalists who believe that sexual relations other than those within marriage between one man and one woman are morally wrong. They also want to be foster parents. Should they be allowed to care for other people’s children? Derby city council have been reluctant to allow this, and the High
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Who should be allowed to foster?
A Christian couple have been blocked in their attempt to foster children this week. Eunice and Owen Johns had applied to Court to prevent Derby city council from continuously stalling their application to foster children. The council was doing so because the couple are Pentecostal Christians who hold “strong views on homosexuality, stating that it