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. …

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.

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…

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…

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 so…

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 Netherl…

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:   […

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…

In a recent article in The Observer the publication of a scientific article presenting evidence in favour of a new theory about the fate of the Neanderthals was reported (See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-canni…

Starting with the financial crisis back in autumn it seems that greed and poor judgement are two persistent themes this year. While mankind was not entirely unfamiliar with the plague of greed prior to October 2008, recent events have meant…