I spent a very interesting and enjoyable week in London, speaking, meeting people involved in the issues about which I engage, doing a little BBC and other media, and generally enjoying the town. A few thoughts: The UK is a wonderful country but it seems to be heading down a bad utilitarian road . . . . Continue Reading »
Carlo Giovanardi, an Italian government official, is in hot water for likening the pending legalization of infanticide in the Netherlands to what happened during World War II in Germany, when doctors murdered hundreds of thousands disabled infants and adults. I am not a big fan of raising the Nazi . . . . Continue Reading »
There is an awful story here in the UK about 6 human subjects who were catastrophically injured during a test of a new drug being developed to treat leukemia. One may be in a coma for up to a year.Many questions have been raised about whether the experimenters followed necessary safety protocols, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Court ruled in favor of the parents in the Baby MB case. Good. This is one of those “benefit of the doubt” cases, in which the benefit should go to life and respecting the desires of the child’s parents. Doctors and bioethicists, however well intentioned, should not be able to . . . . Continue Reading »
Both the Schindler family and Michael Schiavo have books coming out about the Terri Schiavo case. To me, the core legal problems faced by the Schindlers were the failure of the original trial lawyer to create an adequate trial record and the refusal of Judge Greer to truly apply a clear and . . . . Continue Reading »
As I write this post, the Baby MB case decision is about to be announced. If the Court rules that doctors are permitted to unilaterally refuse life support, it will be a huge step forward for the medical futility movement, that persumes to permit bioethicists and doctors to, in effect, declare that . . . . Continue Reading »
Here in the UK, the NHS is all the news. It is bleeding red ink. Money problems are apparently leading toward health care rationing. The BBC had a big story about elderly people being denied coverage for care that might have been due under the rules of the Service. And yet the assisted suicide . . . . Continue Reading »
I have been hearing from some folk that my post on Wilmut taking false credit as the cloner of Dolly is much ado about nothing. It was his lab, this thinking goes, so who cares who actually came up with the concept and did the actual work?Well, apparently some scientists do. Wilmut received a . . . . Continue Reading »