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1Scientific dissent and public policy. Is targeting dissent a reasonable way to protect sound policy decisions?EMBO Reports 14 (4): 231-35. 2013.
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10Monterrey, C-section capital of Mexico: Examining the ethical dimensionsInternational Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2 (1): 148-164. 2009.Cesarean sections are one of the most commonly performed surgical operations worldwide. Though evidence suggests that non-medically indicated cesarean sections raise the health risks for mothers and their babies and result in increased costs of health care compared with vaginal deliveries, reports are common that the frequency of performance of this surgical procedure is far above WHO recommendations. Of special concern has been the current increase of cesarean delivery rates in some Latin Ameri…Read more
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15Should professional associations sanction conscientious refusals?American Journal of Bioethics 7 (6). 2007.This Article does not have an abstract
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27Lack of Access to Genetic-Relative Family Health History: A Health Disparity for Adoptees?American Journal of Bioethics 16 (12): 43-45. 2016.
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76Defending human enhancement technologies: unveiling normativityJournal of Medical Ethics 36 (8): 483-487. 2010.Recent advances in biotechnologies have led to speculations about enhancing human beings. Many of the moral arguments presented to defend human enhancement technologies have been limited to discussions of their risks and benefits. The author argues that in so far as ethical arguments focus primarily on risks and benefits of human enhancement technologies, these arguments will be insufficient to provide a robust defence of these technologies. This is so because the belief that an assessment of ri…Read more
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1Regulating scientific research: should scientists be left alone?FASEB Journal 22 (3): 654-58. 2008.
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How do disclosure policies fail? Let us count the ways.FASEB Journal 23 (6): 1638-42. 2009.The disclosure policies of scientific journals now require that investigators provide information about financial interests relevant to their research. The main goals of these policies are to prevent bias from occurring, to help identify bias when it occurs, and to avoid the appearance of bias. We argue here that such policies do little to help achieve these goals, and we suggest more effective alternatives.
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81Firing up the nature/nurture controversy: bioethics and genetic determinismJournal of Medical Ethics 31 (9): 526-530. 2005.It is argued here that bioethicists might inadvertently be promoting genetic determinism: the idea that genes alone determine human traits and behaviours. Discussions about genetic testing are used to exemplify how they might be doing so. Quite often bioethicists use clinical cases to support particular moral obligations or rights as if these cases were representative of the kind of information we can acquire about human diseases through genetic testing, when they are not. On other occasions, th…Read more
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139On our obligation to select the best children: A reply to SavulescuBioethics 18 (1). 2004.ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to examine critically Julian Savulescu's claim that people should select, of the possible children they could have, the one who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available genetic information, including information about non‐disease genes. I argue here that in defending this moral obligation, Savulescu has neglected several important issues such as access to selection technologies, disproporti…Read more
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71Human dignity in international policy documents: A useful criterion for public policy?Bioethics 25 (1): 37-45. 2010.Current developments in biomedicine are presenting us with difficult ethical decisions and raising complex policy questions about how to regulate these new developments. Particularly vexing for governments have been issues related to human embryo experimentation. Because some of the most promising biomedical developments, such as stem cell research and nuclear somatic transfer, involve such experimentation, several international bodies have drafted documents aimed to provide guidance to governme…Read more
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210Sex Selection and the Procreative Liberty FrameworkKennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 23 (1): 1-18. 2013.Although surprising to some proponents of sex selection for non-medical reasons (Dahl 2005), a considerable amount of critical debate has been raised by this practice (Blyth, Frith, and Crawshaw 2008; Dawson and Trounson 1996; Dickens 2002; Harris 2005; Heyd 2003; Holm 2004; Macklin 2010; Malpani 2002; McDougall 2005; Purdy 2007; Seavilleklein and Sherwin 2007; Steinbock 2002; Strange and Chadwick 2010; Wilkinson 2008). While abortion or infanticide has long been used as means of sex selection, …Read more
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33More Clarifications: On the Goals of Conflict of Interest PoliciesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 11 (1): 35-37. 2011.This Article does not have an abstract
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22Ethics, Embryos, and Eggs: The Need for More than Epistemic ValuesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 8 (12): 38-40. 2008.No abstract
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38A Duty to Participate in Research: Does Social Context Matter?American Journal of Bioethics 8 (10): 28-36. 2008.Because of the important benefits that biomedical research offers to humans, some have argued that people have a general moral obligation to participate in research. Although the defense of such a putative moral duty has raised controversy, few scholars, on either side of the debate, have attended to the social context in which research takes place and where such an obligation will be discharged. By reflecting on the social context in which a presumed duty to participate in research will obtain,…Read more
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Novel therapies, high-risk pediatric research, and the prospect of benefit: learning from the ethical disagreements.Molecular Therapapy 20 (6). 2012.We focus here on high-risk pediatric research with the prospect of direct benefit and point out some aspects that have raised significant debate. In particular, we call attention to disagreements related to two essential aspects of this type of research: (i) determining what constitutes a “prospect of direct benefit” in phase I trials that involve gene transfer technologies and (ii) assessing when in these trials the risk is justified by the anticipated benefit to the participant children. Altho…Read more
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63Assisted Reproductive Technology in Spain: Considering Women's InterestsCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 18 (3): 228. 2009.It might come as a surprise to many that Spain, a country with a strong Catholic tradition that officially banned contraceptive technologies until 1978, has some of the most liberal regulations in assisted reproduction in the world. Law No. 35/1988 was one of the first and most detailed acts of legislation undertaken on the subject of assisted-conception procedures. Indeed, not only did the law permit research on nonviable embryos, it made assisted reproductive technologies available to any woma…Read more
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14Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “A Duty to Participate in Research: Does Social Context Matter?”American Journal of Bioethics 8 (10): 3-4. 2008.Because of the important benefits that biomedical research offers to humans, some have argued that people have a general moral obligation to participate in research. Although the defense of such a putative moral duty has raised controversy, few scholars, on either side of the debate, have attended to the social context in which research takes place and where such an obligation will be discharged. By reflecting on the social context in which a presumed duty to participate in research will obtain,…Read more
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52Human Dignity, Transhuman Dignity, and All That JazzAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (7): 53-55. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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30Biological explanations and social responsibilityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34 (2): 345-358. 2003.The aim of this paper is to show that critics of biological explanations of human nature may be granting too much to those who propose such explanations when they argue that the truth of genetic determinism implies an end to critical evaluation and reform of our social institutions. This is the case because when we argue that biological determinism exempts us from social critique we are erroneously presupposing that our social values, practices, and institutions have nothing to do with what make…Read more
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Viewpoint: developing a research ethics consultation service to foster responsive and responsible clinical research.Academic Medicine 82 (9): 900-4. 2007.
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10Beyond risk. A more realistic risk-benefit analysis of agricultural biotechnologiesEMBO Reports 9 (4): 302-06. 2008.
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23The ethics of anonymous gamete donation: is there a right to know one's genetic origins?Hastings Center Report 44 (2): 28-35. 2014.A growing number of jurisdictions hold that gamete donors must be identifiable to the children born with their eggs or sperm, on grounds that being able to know about one's genetic origins is a fundamental moral right. But the argument for that belief has not yet been adequately made.
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72On cloning human beingsBioethics 16 (3). 2002.The purpose of this paper is to show that arguments for and against cloning fail to make their case because of one or both of the following reasons: 1) they take for granted customary beliefs and assumptions that are far from being unquestionable; 2) they tend to ignore the context in which human cloning is developed. I will analyze some of the assumptions underlying the main arguments that have been offered for and against cloning. Once these assumptions are critically analyzed, arguments both …Read more
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46Furthering injustices against women: Genetic information, moral obligations, and genderBioethics 20 (6). 2006.The purpose of this paper is to show that a decontextualized approach to ethical issues is not just unhelpful for the decision making process of real, situated human beings, but dangerous. This is so, because by neglecting the context in which people make moral decisions we run the risk of reinforcing or furthering injustices against already disadvantaged groups. To show this, I evaluate three moral obligations that our ability to obtain genetic information has made salient: the duty to obtain g…Read more
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41A Parental Duty to Use PGD: More Than We Bargained For?American Journal of Bioethics 12 (4): 14-15. 2012.The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 4, Page 14-15, April 2012
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Researching human oocyte cryopreservation: ethical issues.Fertility and Sterility 89 (3): 523-8. 2008.
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24Strangers no more: Genuine interdisciplinarityAmerican Journal of Bioethics 8 (3). 2008.This Article does not have an abstract
Inmaculada de Melo-Martin
Weill Cornell Medicine--Cornell University
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Weill Cornell Medicine--Cornell UniversityProfessor
New York, NY, United States of America
Areas of Interest
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