The Voices of the Dead
AbstractDuring the pandemic, relatives and friends were not able to visit the dying in hospitals or assemble for funerals. The dead were lost in nothingness. But the dead do not disappear. They continue to address us, appeal to us, guide us, direct us, console us. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 7, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: Data Sharing During Pandemics: Reciprocity, Solidarity, and Limits to Obligations
(Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 7, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Publisher Correction to: The Most Essential Moral Virtues Enhance Happiness
(Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 7, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: No Need for Parental Involvement in the Vaccination Choice of Adolescents
(Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 7, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Flesh Without Blood: The Public Health Benefits of Lab‐Grown Meat
AbstractSynthetic meat made from animal cells will transform how we eat. It will reduce suffering by eliminating the need to raise and slaughter animals. But it will also have big public health benefits if it becomes widely consumed. In this paper, we discuss how “clean meat” can reduce the risks associated with intensive animal farming, including antibiotic resistance, environmental pollution, and zoonotic viral diseases like influenza and coronavirus. Since the most common objection to clean meat is that some people find it “disgusting” or “unnat ural,” we explore the psychology of disgust to find possible co...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - September 1, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Meme Science, Pandemic Preparedness, and the Trajectory of Failure
AbstractIn this paper I analyse the implications of “flattening” the curve for long-term care residents in the Province of Ontario, Canada during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic. I then question what the role of healthcare systems are in the response to public health emergencies and problematize their status as entities in need of protection. The ethical implications of this are discussed in light of potential challenges raised by climate change. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 30, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Virus and the Atmosphere: Reviewing the Trajectory of Human History
AbstractThe article compares the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change in terms of natural characteristics of the crisis triggers as well as of socio-political responses. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Deconstructing COVID Time
AbstractThis essay explores the problem of trust and truth in states of emergency. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben ’s theory of biopolitics and his objections to political managerialism I argue that the real problem exposed by the pandemic was not a lack of trust in authority but an unscientific and uncritical attachment to expertise. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Need to Standardize the Reanalysis of Genomic Sequencing Results: Findings from Interviews with Underserved Families in Genomic Research
AbstractThe reanalysis of genomic sequencing results has the potential to provide results that are of considerable medical and personal importance to recipients. Employing interviews with forty-seven predominantly medically underserved families and ethnographic observations we argue that there is pressing need to standardize the approach taken to reanalysis. Our findings highlight that study participants were unclear as to the likelihood of reanalysis happening, the process of initiating reanalysis, and whether they would receive revised results. Their reflections mirror the lack a specific focus upon reanalysis within con...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Reimagining Relationships: Multispecies Justice as a Frame for the COVID-19 Pandemic
AbstractCOVID-19 catalyzed a renewed focus on the interconnected nature of human health. Together with the climate crisis, it highlighted not only intra-human connections but the entanglement of human health with the health of non-human animals, plants, and ecological systems more broadly. In this article, we challenge the persistent notion that humans are ontologically distinct from the rest of nature and the ethics that flow from this understanding. Imposing this privileged view of humans has devastating consequences for beings other than humans and for humans and impedes effective responses to crises. We situate the COV...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Toward Planetary Health Ethics? Refiguring Bios in Bioethics
AbstractIn responding to perceived crises —such as the COVID-19 pandemic—in routinized ways, contemporary bioethics can make us prisoners of the proximate. Rather, we need bioethics to recognize and engage with complex configurations of global ecosystem degradation and collapse, thereby showing us paths toward co-inhabiting the planet s ecurely and sustainably. Such a planetary health ethics might draw rewardingly on Indigenous knowledge practices or Indigenous philosophical ecologies. It will require ethicists, with other health professionals, to step up and become public advocates for environmental sustainability. Th...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 25, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Parliamentary Inquiry into Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve ’s Law) Bill 2021 in Australia: A Qualitative Analysis
AbstractRecently, Australia became the second jurisdiction worldwide to legalize the use of mitochondrial donation technology. TheMitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve ’s Law) Bill 2021 allows individuals with a family history of mitochondrial disease to access assisted reproductive techniques that prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial disease. Using inductive content analysis, we assessed submissions sent to the Senate Committee as part of a programme of scientific inquiry and public consultation that informed drafting of the Bill. These submissions discussed a range of bioethical and legal considerations of centr...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - August 2, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Eight Strategies to Engineer Acceptance of Human Germline Modifications
This article describes eight discrete strategies that proponents employ to influence framing, sway public opinion, and revise policymaking of human germline modifications in a manner that undermines honest engagement. (Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry)
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - July 31, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Most Essential Moral Virtues Enhance Happiness
AbstractEight moral virtues that have figured prominently in various cultures throughout history will be discussed: altruism, empathy, gratitude, humility, and the “cardinal virtues” of justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. The focus will be on how to understand them and what their relationship is to happiness. It will be argued that all eight essential moral virtues enhance happiness in most people most of the time. Their favourable impact on happ iness may motivate humans to become better, which includes the decision to subject themselves voluntarily to moral bioenhancement (MBE)—in order to achieve this be...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - July 27, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
No Need for Parental Involvement in the Vaccination Choice of Adolescents
AbstractParental decision making is necessary for contracting medical interventions that require personal risk –benefit evaluation, and for overseeing matters of education. In the nineteenth century, exemptions from obligatory vaccination were granted for religious and conscientious reasons. Then and today, religion and moral values play marginal roles in vaccine hesitancy and denialism. Rather, the key va lues invoked by vaccine hesitants and denialists are liberty and pluralism. Neither is compatible with limiting adolescents’ choice. Because vaccination does not require assessment of personal medical risks, because ...
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - July 21, 2023 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
