Personhood Measures in the 2014 Election Cycle
By Jonathan F. Will [Cross-posted at The Conversation] Citizens of three states had the opportunity to vote on measures considered by many to be adverse to abortion rights during the November 2014...
View ArticleBioethics on the Ballot
In addition to the closely-watched senate and gubernatorial candidates, 146 ballot questions were up for vote yesterday in 42 states across the nation. Below is a review of the some of the most...
View ArticleBioethicist Art Caplan: Actress Sofia Vergara Can’t Destroy Her Embryos
A new piece by contributor Art Caplan on NBC News: Nick Loeb and Sofia Vergara once were a huge item. Today, they are back in the tabloid press because of a dispute over frozen, human embryos. The...
View ArticleAre All Abortions Equal? Should There Be Exceptions to the Criminalization of...
Given that it was the subject of my first ever blog post on Bill of Health, I am very pleased to share my new paper: “Are All Abortions Equal? Should There Be Exceptions to the Criminalization of...
View ArticleAbortion and the Fetal Personhood Fallacy
By David Orentlicher [cross-posted at HealthLawProfs blog and orentlicher.tumblr.com] Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, and other politicians continue to assert a common fallacy about abortion—because human...
View ArticleFetal Personhood and the Constitution
By John A. Robertson The Rubio-Huckabee claim that actual and legal personhood start at conception has drawn trenchant responses from Art Caplan on the medical uncertainty of such a claim and David...
View ArticleThe “Ashley Treatment” – Thoughts about Avoiding Sexualization
Ashley is young woman who was born in 1997 with a severe mental and physical disability that prevented her from ever eating, walking or talking by herself. Her mental capacity was also not expected to...
View ArticleBreaking News: NAM Releases Report on Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (Part...
By I. Glenn Cohen My last post was a summary of the NAM’s Recommendations on Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (MRT). Now here is my take on the report. But keep in mind the report was just released...
View ArticleDoes the NAM Recommendation of Sex Selection for Mitochondrial Replacement...
As I said in one of my earlier posts today one of the most interesting parts of the NAM report on mitochondrial replacement therapy was its recommendation that only male embryos be implanted and not...
View ArticleSex Markers in Official Documentation – Between Biology and Self-Identification
A recent civil action filed by LAMBDA Legal highlights a debate ongoing for the past several years on the issue of “sex-markers” in official documentation to the U.S courts. In different instances,...
View ArticleWhole Woman’s Health – Some preliminary thoughts on benefits, purposes, and...
The Supreme Court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health is sure to be dissected in the coming days, weeks, and months. In the meantime, I wanted to quickly reengage the discussion about the status of the...
View ArticleNIH Announces Plans for new Rules for Funding Chimera Research (Human-Animal...
As reported by Science, today the NIH announced plans to lift a preemptive year long moratorium on funding chimera research – that which mixes human and animal cells, often at the embryonic stage. Here...
View ArticleInitial Quick Thoughts on the Announcement of the Birth Through Mitochondrial...
The science media is abuzz about the birth of a child using mitochondrial replacement techniques in Mexico to Jordanian parents at the hands of NY Doctors. A few quick reactions (I am heading to this...
View ArticleWestworld and Bioethics
[WARNING: Spoilers below] On Sunday, HBO’s Westworld finished its run. Though I thought some of the early episodes were arguably a bit of a failure as television (and my partner almost jumped off the...
View ArticleChimeras with benefits? Transplants from bioengineered human/pig donors
By Brad Segal In January of this year, Cell published a study modestly titled, Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells. It reports success bioengineering a mostly-pig partly-human...
View ArticleUndocumented Organ Transplants
By Brad Segal Manuel—not his real name—was admitted to the hospital with decompensated heart failure. As a child he had scarlet fever which, left untreated, had caused the valves of his heart to...
View ArticleReligion, Health, and Medicine: the Dialectic of Embedded Social Systems
The philosopher in me understands that there are universal principles in logic, mathematics, and in basic scientific tenets such as the law of gravity. Be that as it may, the historian in me recognizes...
View ArticleWhat are Our Duties and Moral Responsibilities Toward Humans when...
Much of what we fear about artificial intelligence comes down to our underlying values and perception about life itself, as well as the place of the human in that life. The New Yorker cover last week...
View ArticleAI Citizen Sophia and Legal Status
By Gali Katznelson Two weeks ago, Sophia, a robot built by Hanson Robotics, was ostensibly granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia. Sophia, an artificially intelligent (AI) robot modelled after Audrey...
View ArticleIslam and the Beginning of Human Life
When does human life begin? One of the more contentious bioethical and legal issues is about the beginning of human life. Nor is it difficult grasp why, for beyond political rhetoric it is a subject of...
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