Why Bioethics Should “Fail”

By Wesley J. Smith Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement. Rejecting the sanctity/equality of human life, utilitarian in outlook, embracing a eugenics point-of-view, the Oxford professor–what does that tell you?–would lead society in a way opposed by most of the very people bioethics claims to serve. Savulescu …

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Bioethicist protests that ‘whole body gestational donation’ is misunderstood

By Michael Cook   Bioethicists have chosen a lonely and disheartening profession. Locked away in an office, they pound out publications which only a few hundred of people – at best! – will ever read. But occasionally one of their articles escapes from the laboratory and spreads across the globe. The ensuing publicity may not add lustre …

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‘Fetal containers’: Bioethicist proposes using women in vegetative states as surrogates

By Cassy Fiano-Chesser  A bioethicist has argued for using women in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) as surrogates, calling it “whole body gestational donation.” Anna Smajdor, of the University of Olso, wrote in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics that women who are brain dead shouldn’t have their wombs going to waste, when people who want children can use them. …

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Promises to keep: medical graduates and their oaths

A common moral framework for medicine is in danger of disappearing. By Michael Cook A survey of oaths taken by medical students in the United States and Canada in 2014 and 2015 suggests that doctors are beginning their career with vague, confusing, and inconsistent notions of medical ethics. In an article in The New Bioethics, three …

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“Baby Farms” are Already Here as Scientists Move Towards Creating Babies in Artificial Wombs

By Wesley J. Smith Will artificial wombs replace natural gestation? Until very recently, that notion was a far-fetched conjuring out of futuristic novels such as “Brave New World.” But research that could make this dystopian prospect a reality is fast advancing. Scientists have already gestated premature lambs in artificial wombs and brought mouse fetuses halfway through …

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Why Bioethics Should “Fail”

By Wesley J. Smith Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement. Rejecting the sanctity/equality of human life, utilitarian in outlook, embracing a eugenics point-of-view, the Oxford professor–what does that tell you?–would lead society in a way opposed by most of the very people bioethics claims to serve. Savulescu …

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Bioethicist Asks, ‘Does Birth Matter?’ Answers, ‘No’ 

By Wesley J. Smith  The core problem with contemporary bioethics is that the movement denies human exceptionalism. In this view, being human is morally irrelevant. What matters are capacities, such as the ability to value one’s life, which make one a “person.” Under personhood theory, there is such a thing as a human non-person and …

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Bioethicists Okay Human Extinction to Eliminate Suffering

By Wesley J. Smith These days, anti-humanism is as thick as molasses among the intelligentsia. That includes an ongoing conversation in bioethics whether — all things considered — human extinction would be a fine thing because of the suffering that never coming into existence would avoid. Example: A few months ago, Oxford professor Roger Crisp opined that …

Continue reading "Bioethicists Okay Human Extinction to Eliminate Suffering"

Why Bioethics Should “Fail”

By Wesley J. Smith Julian Savulescu represents all that I find so objectionable about the mainstream bioethics movement. Rejecting the sanctity/equality of human life, utilitarian in outlook, embracing a eugenics point-of-view, the Oxford professor–what does that tell you?–would lead society in a way opposed by most of the very people bioethics claims to serve. Savulescu …

Continue reading "Why Bioethics Should “Fail”"

Bioethicists Okay Human Extinction to Eliminate Suffering

By Wesley J. Smith  These days, anti-humanism is as thick as molasses among the intelligentsia. That includes an ongoing conversation in bioethics whether — all things considered — human extinction would be a fine thing because of the suffering that never coming into existence would avoid. Example: A few months ago, Oxford professor Roger Crisp …

Continue reading "Bioethicists Okay Human Extinction to Eliminate Suffering"