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114Families – Beyond the Nuclear IdealBloomsbury Academic. 2012.This book examines, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenge the nuclear family ideal, and some of the arguments that recommend or disqualify these as legitimate units in our societies. That children should be conceived naturally, born to and raised by their two young, heterosexual, married to each other, genetic parents; that this relationship between parents is also the ideal relationship between romantic or sexual partners…Read more
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104The concise argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 35 (10): 589-589. 2009.The ethics of psychiatry The ethics of psychiatry is one of the areas of medical ethics where the overlap between medical ethics and philosophy of medicine is largest. This is illustrated by two papers in the current issue of the JME. Charlotte Blease discusses whether it is “… ever right to prescribe placebos to patients in clinical practice?” in the context of prescribing for patients with severe depression . Would such prescriptions for instance amount to morally problematic deception? In an …Read more
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91Free riders and pious sons – why science research remains obligatoryBioethics 23 (3): 161-171. 2008.John Harris has previously proposed that there is a moral duty to participate in scientific research. This concept has recently been challenged by Iain Brassington, who asserts that the principles cited by Harris in support of the duty to research fail to establish its existence. In this paper we address these criticisms and provide new arguments for the existence of a moral obligation to research participation. This obligation, we argue, arises from two separate but related principles. The prin…Read more
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81Should we enhance animals?Journal of Medical Ethics 35 (11): 678-683. 2009.Much bioethical discussion has been devoted to the subject of human enhancement through various technological means such as genetic modification. Although many of the same technologies could be, indeed in many cases already have been, applied to non-human animals, there has been very little consideration of the concept of “animal enhancement”, at least not in those specific terms. This paper addresses the notion of animal enhancement and the ethical issues surrounding it. A definition of animal …Read more
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75Frozen embryos, genetic information and reproductive rightsBioethics 21 (8). 2007.Recent ethical and legal challenges have arisen concerning the rights of individuals over their IVF embryos, leading to questions about how, when the wishes of parents regarding their embryos conflict, such situations ought to be resolved. A notion commonly invoked in relation to frozen embryo disputes is that of reproductive rights: a right to have (or not to have) children. This has sometimes been interpreted to mean a right to have, or not to have, one's own genetic children. But can such rig…Read more
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74Genome Editing Technologies and Human Germline Genetic Modification: The Hinxton Group Consensus StatementAmerican Journal of Bioethics 15 (12): 42-47. 2015.The prospect of using genome technologies to modify the human germline has raised profound moral disagreement but also emphasizes the need for wide-ranging discussion and a well-informed policy response. The Hinxton Group brought together scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and journal editors for an international, interdisciplinary meeting on this subject. This consensus statement formulated by the group calls for support of genome editing research and the development of a scientific roadmap f…Read more
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69Moral enhancement and pro-social behaviourJournal of Medical Ethics 37 (3): 130-131. 2011.Moral enhancement is a topic that has sparked much current interest in the world of bioethics. The possibility of making people ‘better,’ not just in the conventional enhancement sense of improving health and other desirable qualities and capacities, but by making them somehow more moral, more decent, altogether better people, has attracted attention from both advocates 1 2 and sceptics 3 alike. The concept of moral enhancement, however, is fraught with difficult questions, theoretical and pract…Read more
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62Consequentialism without Consequences: Ethics and Embryo ResearchCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 19 (1): 61. 2010.The legitimacy of embryo research, use, and destruction is among the most important issues facing contemporary bioethics. In the preceding paper, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu took up an argument of John Harris and tried to find some new ways of avoiding its dramatic consequences. They noted that: “John Harris has argued that if … it is morally permissible to engage in reproduction … despite knowledge that a large number of embryos will fail to implant and quickly die, then … it is morally…Read more
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61Does a Fish Need a Bicycle? Animals and Evolution in the Age of BiotechnologyCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 20 (3): 484-492. 2011.Animals, in the age of biotechnology, are the subjects of a myriad of scientific procedures, interventions, and modifications. They are created, altered, and experimented upon—often with highly beneficial outcomes for humans in terms of knowledge gained and applied, yet not without concern also for the effects upon the experimental subjects themselves: consideration of the use of animals in research remains an intensely debated topic. Concerns for animal welfare in scientific research have, howe…Read more
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38‘Risky’ research and participants' interests: the ethics of phase 2C clinical trialsClinical Ethics 6 (2): 91-96. 2011.Biomedical research involving human participants is highly regulated and subject to stringent ethical requirements. Clinical research ethics, regulation and policy have tended to focus almost exclusively on the protection of participants' interests against harms that might result from taking part in research. Less consideration, however, has been given to the interests that patients may themselves have in research participation, even in trials that may be beyond the bounds of current clinical re…Read more
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34Cord blood banking: what are the real issues?Journal of Medical Ethics 32 (11): 621-622. 2006.More impetus needs to be placed on cord blood donationIn July, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists released a report on the uses and the potential perils of umbilical cord blood collection.1 This report has had the positive effect of drawing attention to what has hitherto been an under addressed topic of medical research and ethics. However, the focus and recommendations of the report say little about one important aspect of cord blood usage—research. Such an omission, although…Read more
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31Hidden Anthropocentrism and the “Benefit of the Doubt”: Problems With the “Origins” Approach to Moral StatusAmerican Journal of Bioethics 14 (2): 18-20. 2014.No abstract
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27Adam's fibroblast? The (pluri)potential of iPCsJournal of Medical Ethics 34 (2): 64-66. 2008.Two groups of scientists have just announced what is being described as a leap forward in human stem cell research.1–3 Both have found ways of producing what are being called “induced pluripotent cells” , stem cells that they hope will demonstrate the same key properties of regeneration and unrestricted differentiation that human embryonic stem cells possess, but which are derived from skin cells not from embryos. In simple terms, these scientists have succeeded in reprogramming skin cells to be…Read more
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27Public involvement in the governance of population-level biomedical research: unresolved questions and future directionsJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (7): 522-525. 2021.Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to…Read more
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19More than cautionary tales: the role of fiction in bioethicsJournal of Medical Ethics 35 (7): 398-399. 2009.