I am not writing much about the Terri Schiavo case any more. Partly, this is because most people’s views about her death are now set in ten feet of concrete, and nothing I say or write will change it. And partly it is because there is so much about which to be concerned, that there just . . . . Continue Reading »
I have a column in today’s Seattle Times against assisted suicide that urges readers to consider the context in which assisted suicide would be carried out. (It is a rewritten version of a piece that first appeared a few months ago in the Orange County Register.) I bring this up because the . . . . Continue Reading »
I know, I don’t have ovaries. But women do, and their eggs are becoming valuable commodities for biotechnological research. Obtaining eggs, however can be an onerous, even dangerous process. Indeed, two women have died in the UK donating eggs in the last year. And if cloning takes off, . . . . Continue Reading »
This is hot: The promoters of human cloning and ESCR constantly bemoan the alleged “fact” that the USA is falling behind in stem cell research because of President Bush’s funding policies. Now, we know that is pure bunk. The Scientist, no less, has published statistics about the . . . . Continue Reading »
This story about a Japanese surgeon who is accused of “mass euthanasia” is misleading. The doctor is accused of removing respirators from dying patients with family consent. That is not euthanasia, at least as we use that term in the West, which refers to killing by some artificial . . . . Continue Reading »
In this piece in the Daily Standard, I compare German infant euthanasia during World War II—which has been self evidently condemned as a crime against humanity—with infant euthansia in the Netherlands, which the Dutch insist is not a crime againt humanity. The Dutch are . . . . Continue Reading »
It appears that the testes may provide cells that can be transformed into pluripotent stem cells that could be used to treat degenerative diseases in men, who would be able to have their own, er, delicate tissues harvested and then used as life saving medicine. But the headline writer for the . . . . Continue Reading »
I just returned from a very rewarding and interesting, if short, trip to Mexico (Mexicali). I spoke to an overflow crowd at a medical school, and was gratified by the response and the clear idealism of the soon-to-be doctors. I appeared on Mexican television where the interviewer asked better . . . . Continue Reading »
The brouhaha between the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Italy’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Carlo Giovanardi, continues to boil. Giovanardi, readers of Secondhand Smoke will recall, recently compared Dutch infant euthanasia to German infant euthanasia during WWII. That got Jan Peter . . . . Continue Reading »
I reviewed a new book on the Eugenics Movement in the current National Review, and gave it a substantial rave. Better For All The World is great history. Sadly, the author understands the problem of the resurgence of eugenics thinking in bioethics and among some futurists, but the answer to this . . . . Continue Reading »
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