I wish I could applaud the Massachusetts initiative to require everyone to have health insurance. I haven’t seen much to recommend the government as a responsible regulator of insurance or healthcare. Healthcare too easily becomes an entitlement that can be used in the way that circuses and bread were in old Rome: If you play … Continue reading
It has long been possible to observe very premature babies pull away from painful stimuli and react physically as though they were in pain by crying, showing faster pulses and breathing rates and even changes in their blood hormone levels that mimic pain response in older human beings. But that pain has been dismissed as … Continue reading
Kevin T. Kevin questions my post concerning the rights of fathers to choose to be fathers or not to be fathers. Irony was the point, Kevin. There definitely is no child for hours to days after ejaculation. There’s not even an embryo or fetus. Where is the logic in determining the “personhood” based on one … Continue reading
Recently, this blog mentioned the advocacy of “death with dignity” for all humans who desire the help of physicians and modern medicine in their quest for self-induced death. But, there’s a worse ethical position, one I thought had died out (excuse the pun). Eric Pianka, Ph.D, a tenured professor in the Integrative Biology department of … Continue reading
An anonymous reader has noted that when I complained about CBS’ touting of destructive stem cell research, the example that I gave involved the use of patient’s own stem cells. These cells would not treat Batten disease, which is a inborn error of metabolism. This type of disease is a genetic defect in the metabolism … Continue reading
Over at FreeRepublic, they’re discussing this week’s New York Times guest editorial, “The Doctor Will See You for Seven Minutes,” by Peter Salgo, MD. I highly recommend that your read the op-ed at the NYT in full, and then the thread at FR. 3 years ago, I closed my office and went to work part … Continue reading
Today’s Science Magazine reports on the implications of patent law on embryonic stem cell research. (Sorry, subscription only, excerpts below.) Somehow, there has not been much notice that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was awarded the patent to human embryonic stem cells in 2001. “On 9 August 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush directed … Continue reading
Just noticed that the Hinxton panel that decided to come to a consensus on what to do with human embryos, but ignored the very nature of human embryos themselves, included Julian Savulescu. The Oxford ethics professor is the author of a piece in the British Medical Journal (sorry, subscription only) in which he stated that, … Continue reading
Two of the most brilliant ethicists in the United States have answered one of the most partisan. Robert P. George and Gilbert Meilander, in the National Review On Line, have answered Michael Gazzaniga’s New York Times discussion on embryonic stem cell research. You’ll remember that Gazzaniga’s editorial, published in the NYT last week, called for … Continue reading
>A most appropriate question on this day, when the Supreme Court ruled that Oregon’s laws allowing physicians to write prescriptions intended to cause the death of patients. This time, the question is asked by Kathryn Hinsch,the founder of the Womens Bioethics Project, in her “guest column” in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The subject of the … Continue reading