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Conscience Rights or Conscience Wrongs?: Debating Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

Conscience Rights or Conscience Wrongs?: Debating Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

Written by: David Albert Jones, Anscombe Bioethics Centre

& Alberto Giubilini, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford

 

For the purpose of this debate (held online on 12 October 2020), Alberto Giubilini and David Albert Jones each adopted a position on conscientious objection (CO) contrary to the one that he in fact holds. David A. Jones, who is a defender of a right to conscientious objection in healthcare, made the case against it. Alberto Giubilini, who is against a right to conscientious objection in healthcare, made the case in favour of it. What follows is an evaluation by each of the arguments of the other in relation to their strengths and how they were presented.Read More »Conscience Rights or Conscience Wrongs?: Debating Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

Pandemic Ethics: Should Santa Claus Deliver Christmas Presents This Year? Preparing For Our First COVID-19 Christmas

Written by: Alberto Giubilini; Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, &

Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford

(In the picture: 2020 letter to Santa Claus by Eleonora D.D.)

It’s that time of the year again, when Christmas decorations start to appear way too early in shopping malls. It’s beginning to look a bit too much like Christmas. Except that, being it 2020, of course this year “it will be different”.

Pubs are very optimistically accepting bookings for Christmas dinners, but many Christmas markets are (un)fortunately being cancelled. You might still see your distant relatives on Christmas day, but (un)fortunately no more than 6 of them at any one time.

Amidst the inevitable confusion, one obvious question is whether Santa Claus should deliver presents this year.

There are various factors to consider when deciding what Santa – but indeed everyone else – should be allowed to do over Christmas. The most relevant are probably the following:

  1. COVID-19 infection rate over Christmas.
  2. Risks and benefits for others of Santa’s job.
  3. Risks and benefits for Santa

Read More »Pandemic Ethics: Should Santa Claus Deliver Christmas Presents This Year? Preparing For Our First COVID-19 Christmas

COVID-19: Ethical Guidelines for the Exit Strategy

Alberto Giubilini

Julian Savulescu

Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

University of Oxford

Supported by the UKRI/AHRC funded project “The Ethical Exit Strategy”

(Grant number AH/V006819/1)

https://practicalethics.web.ox.ac.uk/ethical-exit-strategy-covid-19

These are the “Main Points” and the Executive Summary of a Statement on key ethical considerations and recommendations for the UK “Exit Strategy”, that is, the strategy informing the series of measures to move the country from the state of lockdown introduced in March 2020 to a ‘new normality’.

The full Statement can be found at https://practicalethics.web.ox.ac.uk/files/covidexitstatement1octaccpdf

The document has been produced also on the basis of the discussion among academics and stakeholders from different fields (ethics, economics, medicine, paediatrics, mental health, nursing), who participated in an online workshop on the “Ethical Exit Strategy”, held on the 8th of July 2020.Read More »COVID-19: Ethical Guidelines for the Exit Strategy

Coronavirus: Why I Support the World’s First COVID Vaccine Challenge Trial

Lesterman/Shutterstock

Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford

Two months ago I received an email from a colleague inviting me to join a global campaign to support a form of vaccine research that would involve deliberately infecting volunteers with COVID-19. This might seem like a strange idea. Some people have raised concerns about this research. Some even think that it would violate the Hippocratic oath for a doctor to expose research participants to harm in this way.

But as a medical doctor, an ethicist and a researcher, I strongly support COVID-19 challenge trials. I replied immediately and have joined over 150 academics on an open letter advocating preparation for these trials. This week, there are reports that the first of these trials will start in London in 2021. Special research facilities are being developed, and several thousand young people in the UK have already volunteered to be part of such a trial.Read More »Coronavirus: Why I Support the World’s First COVID Vaccine Challenge Trial

Some Questions for the University of Oxford about their Covid-19 Advice

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Written by University of Oxford DPhil Student, Tena Thau   Yesterday, Oxford sent out an email to students, informing us that we would be asked to sign this Covid-19 Student Responsibility Agreement, before the start of term in October. The email also linked to some further Covid-19 guidance. Here are some questions that I had,… Read More »Some Questions for the University of Oxford about their Covid-19 Advice

Must Clinical Ethics Committees Involve Patients or Families in their Meetings?

By Dominic Wilkinson @Neonatalethics and Michael Dunn @ethical_mikey

In a high court case reported last week, a judge strongly criticised a London hospital’s clinical ethics committee (CEC). The case related to disputed treatment for a gravely ill nine-year old child. There had been a breakdown in the relationship between the clinical team and the child’s parents. Prior to going to court, the clinicians had referred the case to the CEC. The committee had heard evidence from the medical professionals involved, and apparently reached consensus that further invasive life prolonging treatments were not in the child’s best interests. However, the committee had not involved the parents in the meeting. The judge found this omission striking and regrettable. She noted

“a lack of involvement by patients and/or their families is itself an issue of medical ethics and I am most surprised that there is not guidance in place to ensure their involvement and/or participation. … the absence of any prior consultation or participation, cannot be good practice and should generally be unacceptable.”
Read More »Must Clinical Ethics Committees Involve Patients or Families in their Meetings?

Pandemic Ethics: Good Reasons to Vaccinate: COVID19 Vaccine, Mandatory or Payment Model?

The best chance of bringing the Coronavirus pandemic to an end with the least loss of life and the greatest return  to normality seems to be the introduction of an effective vaccine. But how should such a vaccine be distributed?

To be effective, particularly in protecting the most vulnerable in the population, it would need to achieve herd immunity (the exact percentage of the population that would need to be immune for herd immunity to be reached depends on various factors, but current estimates range up to 82% of the population).

There are huge logistical issues around finding a vaccine, proving it to be safe, and then producing and administering it to the world’s population. Even if those issues are resolved, the pandemic has come at a time where there is another growing problem in public health: vaccine hesitancy.

Indeed, recent US polls  “suggest only 3 in 4 people would get vaccinated if a COVID-19 vaccine were available, and only 30% would want to receive the vaccine soon after it becomes available.”

If these results prove accurate then even if a safe and effective vaccine is produced, at best, herd immunity will be significantly delayed by vaccine hesitancy at a cost to both lives and to the resumption of normal life, and at worst, it may never be achieved.

Should it be made mandatory?

Read More »Pandemic Ethics: Good Reasons to Vaccinate: COVID19 Vaccine, Mandatory or Payment Model?