Controversy erupted last week when the UK Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said that the law on abortion should be changed. But before looking at what he said, can I ask what you think? Here are some options:
Melissa and Brad’s story is a heart wrenching one. Having to sell the family car in order to have a healthy baby.
From the government’s perspective, this is a bizarre situation. The care of a baby born with cystic fibrosis can cost over half a million dollars or more. Melissa and Brad both saved the government, and all of us, quite a lot, perhaps over half a million dollars. Yet they had to spend tens of thousands of dollars. They have, in effect, donated several hundred thousand dollars to the Australian public. Thanks Melissa and Brad.
This situation is profoundly immoral. People should have children born without disabling genetic disorders and they should be given support and encouragement to do so. If someone said to a person having IVF, “ We have two viable embryos, one is healthy and the other has a major disease. Would you like us to flip a coin, choose the healthy one or choose the one with the disease?” What should you do? What is the right thing to do?
Read More »A Tale of a Designer Baby and Distributive Injustice
When Brad and I started dating in early 2008, Brad mentioned that if our relationship ended with us having a baby, it would be best if I was tested to see if I carried the CF gene. We meet with the geneticist at Hunter Genetics in Newcastle to have the test (which involved taking a… Read More »Melissa and Brad’s Story: Designer Babies
The Governor of California, Jerry Brown, has signed a Bill that will ban ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapies in that State. These are interventions that aim at ‘curing’ homosexuality or at least, controlling homosexual desires. There have been reported cases of exorcisms, shock treatment and aversive therapies not unlike those that were used in Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.Read More »Banning conversion therapies
There has been discussion on a Polish news site about an extreme case of reckless driving. The discussion is not about the driver – his culpability and stupidity are in no doubt – rather, the discussion is about whether the passengers in the car should be punished in some way for the role they played; their role not only in failing to calm the driver and his driving, but most importantly in their active and enthusiastic encouragement of him and it.
The video of the drive, taken from within the car and uploaded to YouTube, shows five and a half minutes of speeding through red lights, overtaking despite oncoming traffic, using the curb as a ramp to ‘get air’ and, most disturbingly, only narrowly missing a pedestrian crossing the road. All this is accompanied by encouraging whoops and shouts and exclamations of “Karol, you are my God!” (Karol is the driver.) The passengers clearly want – and ask – Karol to take more and more risks.Read More »Driving Crazy
As Ben Goldacre reveals, the status quo in drug testing is nothing less than a scandal. Pharmaceutical companies are suppressing and blocking information, perfectly legally, that is causing adults and children to die. Reforming the system wouldn’t be too hard – a registry for all drug trials, before they begin, should be enough to get rid of… Read More »Focus on the important things: reforming medical trials
October 2, 6.00 – 7.30 p.m. BMW Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne ALL WELCOME Public debate between Julian Savulescu (Oxford University) and Rob Sparrow (Monash University). Further information
Reflect for a moment on the place you call home. Perhaps this is the place where you grew up, and where you return to from time to time to see family and old friends. Or maybe it’s somewhere you’ve subsequently settled and built your life. Somewhere, at least, that you have a fondness for, though strangers might not see it in the rosy same light. Now imagine that the policies of those in charge are steadily ruining your home. Left unchecked, the place will eventually be left uninhabitable. Presumably this would alarm you, and that alarm would be reflected in your motivation to do something about it.
Last week the Sydney Herald published details about an Australian Doctor who has been struck off as a GP (although not as a Radiologist) after prescribing Cyprostat to an 18 year man in order to treat his homosexuality.1 Both men were members of the Exclusive Brethren Church and the patient was taken to see Dr Craddock by a member of the church after being advised that there are treatments for homosexuality.
The Medical Council of New South Wales criticized him for not taking an appropriate medical history, not doing a physical examination, not referring his patient for counselling and not ordering medical tests to detect adverse reactions to the drug. Dr Craddock admitted that he did not do these things and, given that his departure from sound clinical skills occurred when using a powerful medical for such a radical purpose, it is not surprising that the court reached a finding of unsatisfactory, professional conduct.Read More »Chemical castration and homosexuality
It has always been a puzzle to me that there is no league in basketball for small people. Height is a vague concept, like baldness, but just as some people are unquestionably bald, others are unquestionably short. Shortness is a category to which I, unfortunately and indisputably belong.Read More »The Paralympics and Short Basketball
