-
Nice People Take Drugs (Too)
The drug and human rights charity *Release* recently launched an advertising campaign in which the slogan ‘Nice People Take Drugs’ was displayed on the sides of London buses. Their aim was to encourage society to face up to the reality that a huge proportion of the population does at least experiment with drugs and to…
-
Not better than the alternative: an informal experimentation tragedy
Police are reinvestigating the 2007 death of Yolanda Cox, a woman who collapsed in anaphylactic shock after being injected with an experimental drug by her sister, a GP. The drug was developed by their mother, originally intended to treat diabetes but apparently believed to extend lifespan. After testing on diabetic patients and apparently themselves without…
-
Pandemic Pandemonium
Victoria, Australia – where I write these words – is apparently right now in the grip of an epidemic of swine flu – an epidemic significant enough to play an important role in the World Health Organisation’s decision to declare a pandemic. ‘Pandemic’ sounds pretty serious, but in fact it is very difficult to get…
-
Is it simply “Killing a Mass Murderer”? Why anti-abortion zealots need to reconsider their arguments.
Recently, Dr. George Tiller was shot dead. Three hours after his assassination in Kansas, a pro-life activist was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
-
Decisions, decisions.
I’ve just returned from Malta where I came across a story that I had missed at the time. A decade ago a Catholic woman from the Maltese island of Gozo gave birth to conjoined twins. Doctors said the twins would both die unless they were operated on; but if this operation went ahead only one…
-
Precrime in Camden: using DNA profiles for crime prevention
The UK police has an estimated 5.3 million DNA profiles in its databases, of which about 850,000 are of people who were never convicted of any crime (including 24,000 samples of youngsters who have never been convicted, cautioned or charged with any offence). Although the European Court ruled that a policy of retaining profiles of…
-
Disagreement about value or about the facts?
Both within and outside ethics, people often worry about disagreements that are purely about value. Suppose that you and I completely agree about all the empirical facts about some case, yet you think that it’s absolutely forbidden to do something and I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It can seem hard to…
-
Neonatal euthanasia without parental consent
A provocative article soon to be published in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry argues that parental consent should not be a prerequisite for neonatal euthanasia. At present, the only country to permit neonatal euthanasia is the The Netherlands. Medical personnel there are not prosecuted for actively euthanizing infants in great suffering, provided that they satisfy…
-
Why Talk about Ticking Time-Bombs?
Ticking time-bomb cases have played a tremendous role in discourse regarding the moral status of interrogational torture. In terms of the philosophical literature, an early formulation owes to a seminal essay by Henry Shue: [S]uppose a fanatic, perfectly willing to die rather than collaborate in the thwarting of his own scheme, has set a…
-
Coercion, compulsion and immunisation
The former head of the British Medical Association, Sir Sandy Macara, has called for the Measles Mumps and Rubella immunisation (MMR) to be a compulsory requirement prior to school entry. The UK has seen a surge in cases of measles over the last couple of years because of a fall in the immunisation rate. Many…