Category: Medical Ethics

Healing, not Enhancing: Drawing Lines in Medical Ethics

By John Stonestreet with Roberto Rivera In the 1976 made-for-television movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble,” a then-unknown John Travolta introduced Americans to a condition technically called “X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency.” Or, as people have called it since the movie, “bubble boy disease.” Children with “bubble boy disease” can’t fight off infections that the …

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Back to the source: the Hippocratic Oath re-examined

By Michael Cook Over the centuries the Hippocratic Oath has expressed the ideals of the medical profession, although nowadays other versions have supplanted it for graduating medical students– if they take any oath at all. If taken literally the Oath is an anachronism. Who today “swears by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, …

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Never ethical or lawful to withdraw treatment from patients with a persistent disorder of consciousness, British Law professor says

By Xavier Symons There has been significant debate in recent years about the ethics of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment from patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOCs). Some examples of PDOCs include patients in a minimally conscious state and those in a persistent vegetative state. Prevailing wisdom in both law and ethics suggests that decisions about …

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Scientific experts tell House subcommittee there are many proven alternatives to using tissue from aborted babies for research

By Dave Andrusko A congressional subcommittee heard testimony today from three experts on the now-more-important-than-ever issue of ethical alternatives to scavenging fetal tissue from aborted babies. As NRL News Today has reported over the past few days, the Trump administration is planning to fund such alternatives with $20 million over the next two years. This …

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How medical residents wrested their consciences into submission

By Dave Andrusko Sarah Terzo’s except from an academic study posted elsewhere today inspired me to revisit the personal stories from young residents that appeared in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, under the headline “Four Residents’ Narratives on Abortion Training: A Residency Climate of Reflection, Support, and Mutual Respect.” I first learned of the …

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Training to become an abortionist, resident chooses not to do because of “abyss of ambiguity”

By Sarah Terzo From a resident who was in training to become an abortionist, but decided against performing abortions as a career: “When I started residency, I was open to the possibility of providing terminations. I was and remain uncertain about when life begins… Increasingly, I have found myself caught up in an endless array …

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The “medical Conscience” civil rights movement

By Wesley J. Smith Until recently, healthcare was not culturally controversial. Medicine was seen as primarily concerned with extending lives, curing diseases, healing injuries, palliating symptoms, birthing babies, and promoting wellness—and hence, as a sphere in which people of all political and social beliefs were generally able to get along. That consensus has been shattered. …

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Canadian Doctors Get Ready for Child Euthanasia

In the United States’ most culturally aligned nation, a race toward the once-unthinkable accelerates By Wesley J. Smith It never made any sense. The assurance that active euthanasia would always be limited to terminally ill, competent adults just never made any sense. Here’s the problem: Once a society widely supports eliminating suffering by eliminating the …

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Welsh Midwife tells mother the purpose of blood test for Down Syndrome “is for terminations”

Discriminatory attitudes towards babies with Down syndrome are still rife in the medical profession. Campaigners say pregnant women were being “pushed towards terminations” By SPUC—the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children In news that shows how prevalent discriminatory attitudes towards babies with Down’s syndrome still are within the medical profession, a mother has spoken …

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New “game-changing” findings and recommendations offer new hope to brain-injured patients unfairly labeled “vegetative”

By Dave Andrusko In his post for the Catholic Phily, Richard Doerflinger calls new findings and recommendations from a prestigious group of medical organizations nothing short of “game-changing.” Doerflinger, who worked for 36 years in the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is referring to new guidelines from the American …

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Win for conscientious objection in Norway

Doctor vindicated By Michael Cook Norway’s Supreme Court has ruled  in favour of conscientious objection and freedom of conscience for doctors. The Court found that Dr Katarzyna Jachimowicz acted within her rights when refusing to insert IUDs because of moral objections. The Court told government health authorities to respect the right to conscientious objection for …

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Controversy surrounds Canadian Medical Association’s withdrawal from world body

What is the real reason CMA withdrew? By Michael Cook As we have already reported, the Canadian Medical Association resigned suddenly and dramatically from the World Medical Association at the WMA’s annual meeting in Reykjavik. The president of the CMA, Dr Gigi Osler, explained that the incoming president of the WMA, Dr Leonid Eidelman, had …

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