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Biomedical Science

Too long in gestating: an overdue inquiry into the Abortion Act

Whatever your view of abortion, there are too many abortions, and too many of them are too late. Even abortion’s fiercest advocates don’t pretend that it’s a Good Thing – just the lesser of two evils.

In 2010 there were 189,574 abortions in England and Wales – an 8% increase in a decade. The tightly policed regime envisaged in 1967, when the Act became law, hasn’t existed for ages, if indeed it ever did. There is abortion on demand, whatever the statute book says.

1967 was a long time ago. There have been many medical advances and societal changes since then. It’s time to take stock of the Act.

That’s what a recently announced cross-party commission, to be chaired by Fiona Bruce MP, will do.

It will focus, rightly, on two issues: medical advances and attitudes to discrimination.Read More »Too long in gestating: an overdue inquiry into the Abortion Act

Do we want “genetically modified children”? Yes, of course!

The agency that regulates fertility treatment and embryo research in the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has asked for public views on two possible new forms of fertility treatment that promise to prevent the transmission of mitochondrial diseases to children. These diseases can be extremely severe, leading to (among other things) diabetes, deafness, progressive blindness, seizures, dementia, muscular dystrophy, and death.

Read More »Do we want “genetically modified children”? Yes, of course!

Could there be a Third Way for Criminal Psychopaths?

Last week, Steven Farrow was convicted of murdering a grandmother and a vicar. 77 year old Betty Yates was stabbed in the face. He had planned to crucify the vicar but had left behind his hammer an nails, instead covering his dead body in pornographic DVDs, party poppers and condoms. Though Farrow is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail, the family members questioned why he had been free in the first place.

Read More »Could there be a Third Way for Criminal Psychopaths?

The AAP report on circumcision: Bad science + bad ethics = bad medicine

By Brian D. Earp See Brian’s most recent previous post by clicking here. See all of Brian’s previous posts by clicking here. Follow Brian on Twitter by clicking here.   UPDATED as of 27 May, 2013. See the bottom of the post. The AAP report on circumcision: Bad science + bad ethics = bad medicine For… Read More »The AAP report on circumcision: Bad science + bad ethics = bad medicine

Should you take ecstasy to improve your marriage? Not so fast …

Love drugs and science reporting in the media: Setting the record straight 

By Brian D. Earp, Julian Savulescu, and Anders Sandberg

Love. It makes the world go round. It is the reason we have survived as a species. It is the subject of our art, literature, and music—and it is largely the product of chemical reactions within the brain.

No wonder science is starting to unravel the ways in which we can influence it, and perhaps even control it.

Just as Darwin’s finding that we are descended from apes shocked people in the nineteenth century, so people will be shocked to find that our most lofty social ideal is something we share with our mammalian cousins and which is the subject of scientific scrutiny and even chemistry-book manipulation.

In 2008, two of us (Julian Savulescu and Anders Sandberg) published an article in the journal Neuroethics on the topic of “love drugs” – a term we use to refer to pharmacological interventions based on existing and future bio-technologies that could work to strengthen the bond between romantic partners. All three of us have an article just published in the journal Philosophy & Technology in which we build upon that earlier work. Interested readers will take the time to study those papers in full, but we have a feeling that much of the population will stop at a handful of media reports that have recently summarized our ideas, including at least one article that we think has the potential to mislead. Let us set the record straight.

Read More »Should you take ecstasy to improve your marriage? Not so fast …

Bold Private John Smith, VC, modified ‘t’ allele of TPH1 SNP rs2108977

By Charles Foster

There’s a significant association of PTSD symptoms with a particular allele, according to a recently published study from UCLA and Duke. Some of the ethical consequences are already being discussed.  One consequence might be military. One might be able to detect and filter out PTSD-vulnerable recruits. Perhaps that’s a kindness. It would certainly seem militarily prudent. There might be legitimate qualms about creating a biologically callous warrior-class, but you’re not creating its components – you’re just collecting them together. You might not want to go to their parties, and you might wonder about the mutually brutalizing effect of corralling them in a barracks, but the exercise is really only a scientifically more informed version of the selection that goes on in any event. It’s not very interesting ethically.
But what if a gene for PTSD-resistance could be inserted or artificially switched on? It doesn’t seem fanciful. Should the military be permitted (or perhaps even required) to PTSD-proof their personnel?Read More »Bold Private John Smith, VC, modified ‘t’ allele of TPH1 SNP rs2108977

Psychiatric drugs to enhance conformity to religious norms, and conscientious objection

An article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports on the (alleged) frequent use of psychiatric drugs within the Haredi community, at the request of the religious leaders, in order to help members conform with religious norms. Haredi Judaism is the most conservative form of Orthodox Judaism. It is sometimes referred to by outsiders as ultra-Orthodox. Haredim typically live in communities that have limited contact with the outside world. Their lives revolve around Torah study, prayer and family.

In December 2011, the Israel Psychiatric Association held a symposium entitled “The Haredi Community as a Consumer of Mental-Health Services”.  One of the speakers was Professor Omer Bonne, director of the psychiatry department at Hadassah University Hospital. Professor Bonne is claimed to have said that sometimes yeshiva students (yeshiva is a religious school) and married men should be given antidepressants even if they do not suffer from depression, because these drugs also suppress sex drive.

Read More »Psychiatric drugs to enhance conformity to religious norms, and conscientious objection

H5N1: Why Open the Stable Door?

Professor Paul Keim, who chairs the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, recently recommended the censoring of research that described the mutations which led to the transformation of the H5N1 bird-flu virus into a form that can be transmitted between humans through droplets in breath (in ferrets, the number of mutations required is frighteningly… Read More »H5N1: Why Open the Stable Door?

Is Drug Addiction a Lifestyle Choice?

According to BBC News this week, the brains of some people “may be wired for addiction.” A study has come out in the journal Science that presents evidence of abnormal brain structures that were found in drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings. The lead researcher, Dr Karen Ersche, was quoted by the BBC as saying that the study “shows that drug addiction is not a choice of lifestyle, it is a disorder of the brain and we need to recognize this.”

Has the Ersche et al study in fact shown that drug addiction is not a lifestyle choice? Has it proven that drug addicts should be treated as innocent patients with medical problems rather than being subject to moral censure for their failure to exert self-control, and for their irresponsible and often deeply anti-social behaviour? No! In fact, it is likely that no possible neuroscientific evidence could show such a thing.

Health warning: You may find brain scan images like these confusing!

Read More »Is Drug Addiction a Lifestyle Choice?