Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford A bill that proposes to ban first-cousin marriage in the UK will receive its second reading in the House of Commons on March 7. The bill, proposed by Conservative former minister Richard Holden, follows the introduction of a ban on cousin marriages that came into effect in Norway in 2023… Read More »Banning first cousin marriage would be eugenic and ineffective
by Thomas Mitchell In September last year, the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act 2024 came into effect. This Act establishes safe zones of 200 metres in all directions around clinics offering abortion services, within which special protections apply to patients and staff accessing the clinic. The purpose is to prevent anyone from stopping women… Read More »Legislating for Influence: The Case of Abortion Safe Zones
By S. Tom de Kok Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare promises to revolutionize diagnostics, treatments, and efficiency, but it is not infallible. What happens when these promises are accompanied by harms that are difficult to define, attribute, or address? The term AI-trogenic harm—a novel term for the unintentional harm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) in… Read More »Iatrogenic to AI-trogenic Harm: Nonmaleficence in AI healthcare
I believe that the debate about remote work reveals fundamental misconceptions about what laziness really means. When we label someone as lazy—a criticism that can have severe consequences for an individual’s career and wellbeing—we should at least be clear about what we mean.
Written by Dr Dennis Masaka, Great Zimbabwe University and AfOx Fellow at the Uehiro Oxford Institute https://www.uehiro.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-dennis-masaka In my proposed work as an AfOx Fellow at Oxford, I seek to initiate a conversation around the way land redistribution has so far taken place in Zimbabwe. I will use the frameworks of collective responsibility and collective… Read More »Collective Responsibility and collective meeting of needs, and the question of Land redistribution in Zimbabwe
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford Following the second reading (and parliamentary support) of Labour MP Kim Leadbetter’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill on November 29, much of the public debate in England and Wales will now shift to questions around safeguards. If the safeguards aren’t considered adequate, the bill is unlikely to pass… Read More »Assisted dying: what we might learn from experience of other controversial decisions in medicine
by Tolulope Osayomi and Mofeyisara Omobowale / first published 25th November on Torch News The roundtable discussion “From Covid-19 to MPox: Lessons from The Humanities? “, organized by Medical Humanities Hub at TORCH and the Uehiro Oxford Institute, featured four panelists with diverse disciplinary approaches to public health crises. Two of the panelists were Oxford-based scholars in… Read More »Cross-post: Roundtable discussion “From Covid-19 to MPox: Lessons from The Humanities?”
Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford; Bryanna Moore, University of Rochester, and Johnna Wellesley, The University of Texas Medical Branch There is a clear ethical and legal principle that adults have a right to make decisions about their health. This is sometimes called the principle of patient autonomy. That is, of course, why doctors need patients’… Read More »Court rules that patients have a right to disbelieve doctors
Jonathan Pugh, University of Oxford; Dominic Wilkinson, University of Oxford, and Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. A virologist named Beata Halassy recently made headlines after publishing a report of successfully treating her own breast cancer by self-administering an experimental… Read More »Is it ever OK for scientists to experiment on themselves?
Andrew Moeller, Faculty of History Alberto Giubilini, Uehiro Oxford Institute Themes from the conference “Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Identity” (Medical Humanities Programme) Crossposted from TORCH Medical Humanities The conference “Biotechnologies, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Identity” brought together a crowded room to hear 12 speakers engage in lively discussion on whether and how technologies such… Read More »(Bio)technology and what makes us human
