The Ethical Assessment of the Stay-At-Home Order in South Africa in Light of The Universal Declaration of Bioethics And Human Rights (UNESCO)
The objective of this study is to assess the stay-at-home order against the global principles of the UDBHR. It is deducible that, in reference to the UDBHR, the government possessed the right to curtail individual liberty, thereby not infringing on Article 5 of the UDBHR and therefore, in this context, passes the test of the UDBHR. However, it remains uncertain at present whether the limitation of freedom imposed by the South African stay-at-home order was successful in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and protecting individuals from harm. Initial investigations also indicate that individuals who are particularly vulnera...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 26, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Review of The Political Economy of Organ Transplantation
(Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 26, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
An Exploratory Study of Physical Therapists From High-Income Countries Practising Outside of Their Scope in Low and Middle-Income Countries
ConclusionsWorking in LMIC requires a keen understanding of the risks and challenges associated with such experiences. To ensure best practice, a skill set that consists of critical self-reflection, systems thinking, and structural competency combined with clinical competency and accountability is imperative. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 20, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
When Black Health, Intersectionality, and Health Equity Meet a Pandemic
AbstractUsing the example of Black people ’s inequitable COVID-19 outcomes and their health outcomes prior to the pandemic, I argue that the pandemic has forever changed how we should think about the conceptual and practical nature of health equity. From here on, we can no longer think of health equity without the concept of intersectiona lity. In particular, we must acknowledge that discrimination (e.g. sexism, ableism, racism, classism, etc.) within our social institutions intersect to withhold resources needed for health from people who themselves have intersecting identities that make them vulnerable to the effects o...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 16, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Reconceiving Reproduction: Removing “Rearing” From the Definition—and What This Means for ART
AbstractThe predominant position in the reproductive rights literature argues that access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) forms part of an individual ’s right to reproduce. On this reasoning, refusal of treatment by clinicians (via provision) violates a hopeful parent’s reproductive right and discriminates against the infertile. I reject these views and suggest they wrongly contort what reproductive freedom entitles individuals to do and dema nd of others. I suggest these views find their origin, at least in part, in the way we define “reproduction” itself. This paper critically analyses two widely acce...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 13, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Physician-Assisted Suicide Pathway in Italy: Ethical Assessment and Safeguard Approaches
AbstractAlthough in Italy there is currently no effective law on physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, Decision No. 242 issued by the Italian Constitutional Court on September 25, 2019 established that an individual who, under specific circumstances, has facilitated the implementation of an independent and freely-formed resolve to commit suicide by another individual is exempt from criminal liability. Following this ruling, some citizens have submitted requests for assisted suicide to the public health system, generating a situation of great uncertainty in the application processes. As a matter of fact, shared and defi...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 13, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Implementation of an Ethics Committee in a University Mental Health Clinic
This article describes the implementation process for this Committee, its duties and scope, as well as the case work and review methodology. A list of the most frequent ethical conflicts is attached, jointly with the ethical analysis of the cases treated throughout the year and a half or work by the Committee. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - October 12, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Principles for Just Prioritization of Expensive Biological Therapies in the Danish Healthcare System
This study includes qual itative interviews with key Danish stakeholders experienced in antibody therapy and prioritizing resources for expensive medicines. Beauchamp and Childress’s model only covers government-funded primary and acute healthcare. Based on the interviews, this study indicates that to be helpful in a Dani sh context this model should include equal access for citizens to government-funded primary and acute healthcare, costly medicine, and other scarce treatments. We conclude that slightly modified, Beauchamp and Childress’s principle of justice might be useful as a conceptual framework for reflectio ns ...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 21, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
An Ethical Examination of Donor Anonymity and a Defence of a Legal Ban on Anonymous Donation and the Establishment of a Central Register
This article provides a critical evaluation of the ethics and legality of anonymous donation. We defend Australian and British legislation that has outlawed donor anonymity, and we argue for the establishment of a central registry that provides donor children with the ability to easily and reliably access identifying information about their donor parents. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 18, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Case for Human Challenge Trials in COVID-19
AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated rapid research to aid in the understanding of the disease and the development of novel therapeutics. One option is to conduct controlled human infection trials (CHITs). In this article I examine the history of deliberate human infection and CHITs and their utilization prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, key ethical considerations of CHITs in the COVID-19 setting, an analysis of the World Health Organization ’s (WHO) Key criteria for the ethical acceptability of COVID-19 human challenge studies, and a review of the two COVID-19 CHITs that have already commenced, their compliance ...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 18, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Everyday Resistance in the U.K. ’s National Health Service
AbstractResistance is a concept understudied in the context of health and healthcare. This is in part because visible forms of social protest are sometimes understood as incongruent with professional identity, leading healthcare workers to separate their visible actions from their working life. Resistance takes many forms, however, and focusing exclusively on the visible means more subtle forms of everyday resistance are likely to be missed. The overarching aim of this study was to explore how resistance was enacted within the workplace amongst a sample of twelve healthcare workers, based in the United Kingdom; exploring t...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 15, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Regulating Movement in Pandemic Times
AbstractAs COVID-19 and its variants spread across Australia at differing paces and intensity, the country ’s response to the risk of infection and contagion revealed an intensification of bordering practices as a form of risk mitigation with disparate impacts on different segments of the Australian community. Australia’s international border was closed for both inbound and outbound travel, with few exceptions, while states and territories, Indigenous communities, and local government areas were subject to a patchwork of varying restrictions. By focusing on borders at various levels, our research traces how the logics ...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 14, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Question of the Origins of COVID-19 and the Ends of Science
AbstractIntense public interest in scientific claims about COVID-19, concerning its origins, modes of spread, evolution, and preventive and therapeutic strategies, has focused attention on the values to which scientists are assumed to be committed and the relationship between science and other public discourses. A much discussed claim, which has stimulated several inquiries and generated far-reaching political and economic consequences, has been that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then, either inadvertently or otherwise, released to the public by a laboratory worker. This has ...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 11, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: Far From the Madding Crowd: Health Service Expectations in the “Country”
(Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 8, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Radicalizing Hope
AbstractThe race against COVID-19 has been intense and painful and many of us are now looking for a way to move on. We may try to seize a degree of comfort and security by convincing ourselves that we are among the “fittest”—that is, among those who have managed to survive—who can now hope for a “new-normal” time, relatively unscathed. But this isn’t what we should be hoping for. Our world, and ourselves, will never be free of COVID-19 or its insidious effects. COVID-19, like climate change, is a threat multiplier and the challenges it has raised are now indelibly engraved in our vulnerable, interconnected li...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 7, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
