Selective data collection – what do we know about the risks of IVF?
A recent article in Newsweek reports on a physician, Dr. Jennifer Snyder, who is calling for the formation of a registry of egg donors to help determine the risks to women who “donate” eggs to other...
View ArticleThe reformation, sexuality, and the body
In honor of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the reformation I have been reading the new biography of Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas. One of the things that caught my interest was the role the...
View ArticleBeing thankful
My wife is a writer. She writes everything from murder ministries, for which I am occasionally the in-house consultant, to a humor column and, of course, a blog. For years she has written a column at...
View ArticleSeeing having children as a harm
A recent Breakpoint article led me to read an opinion piece on nbcnews.com by Travis Rieder, a research scholar with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins, titled “Science proves kids are...
View ArticleChristmas and the personhood of the unborn
One of the most interesting details of the account of Jesus’ birth in the gospels is what happened when Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth. Luke tells us in the first chapter of his gospel that...
View ArticleDistorted views of the human person
After writing about how the events of the first Christmas influence how we think about personhood I read something that made me realize how distorted some of the views of personhood are in our society....
View ArticleThe self-evident superiority of objective moral truth
We live in a culture in which moral relativism, or what some would call moral individualism, seems very inviting to many. This is not a new thing. Twice in the book of Judges the writer says about the...
View ArticleSelection of embryos in IVF to increase birth rates
A recent article in the Daily Mail brought my attention to recent research by the British assisted reproduction scientist Simon Fishel (see abstract) on a technique which can help select which early...
View ArticleDoes the possibility of misdiagnosis make the concept of brain death invalid?
Recently I read the detailed account of what has happened with Jahi McMath, titled “What Does It Mean to Die?” in the most recent issue of The New Yorker. It made me reassess what I think about the...
View ArticlePsychiatric advance directives
Even though I teach bioethics and teach about advance directives, I was not aware that there was such a thing as a psychiatric advance directive until I read this article in the online magazine STAT,...
View ArticleThe death and resurrection of Jesus and how we view death
This is the week when we who are Christians particularly focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. As I have been reflecting on this I have been thinking about how Jesus’ death and resurrection...
View ArticleEuthanasia and those who live with disabilities
This week the students in the medical ethics class that I teach are looking at the issue of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. An article in The Catholic Register reminded me of the important...
View ArticleChoosing to die
When people present an argument for the moral permissibility of euthanasia they commonly start with a case in which a person is suffering from a terminal illness and has uncontrolled pain. They say...
View ArticleThe essence of humanity
Over the past few days I have been reflecting on this year’s CBHD conference which was titled Bioethics and Being Human. In reviewing all the thought-provoking presentations and discussions, I think...
View ArticleRisk and reproductive freedom
A recent article in The Atlantic titled “The Overlooked Emotions of Sperm Donation” discusses concerns about the emotional problems and conflicts that can occur in families that turn to sperm donation...
View ArticleHuman limitation and ethics
By Steve Phillips I recently read Cody Chambers’ article “The Concept of Limitation in Emil Brunner’s Ethics” in Ethics in Conversation from the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics. The article...
View ArticleAvoiding advanced dementia
By Stephen Phillips Norman Cantor has prompted widespread discussion with his recent article “On Avoiding Deep Dementia” in the Hastings Center Report (link is to the abstract only). In his article he...
View ArticleAvoiding advanced dementia, part 2
By Steve Phillips Last week I wrote about one of my moral concerns regarding Norman Cantor’s proposal to avoid advanced dementia, which he views as being intolerably degrading, by using an advance...
View ArticleNoninvasive prenatal testing and sex-selection abortion
By Steve Phillips The National Health Service in Great Britain has decided to implement the use of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and that has raised some concerns. It would seem natural for there...
View ArticleStarting with moral conclusions vs. foundational principles
By Steve Phillips Last week I wrote about how Jeremy Williams’ moral position on sex-selection abortion was influenced by his position on abortion itself. Reflecting a little more on what he wrote...
View ArticleAbortion by mail
By Steve Phillips A recent article on the CNN website reports on a European organization called Aid Access which has recently made the medicines used for medical abortion available to women in the US...
View ArticleAbortion by mail, part 2
By Steve Phillips Last week I wrote about a European organization that has begun providing the medicines used for medical abortions by mail to women seeking abortions in the US following an online...
View ArticleThanksgiving and ethics
By Steve Phillips It is good at times for us to stop and think about why we do the things that we do and what they mean. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, a holiday that our society enthusiastically...
View ArticleGene editing for genetic enhancement
By Steve Phillips I appreciate the prior posts by Jon Holmlund and Mark McQuain regarding the recent announcement of the birth of genetically modified twins in China. Much has been written about why...
View ArticleThe hope of Christmas
By Steve Phillips Every year at this time I try to spend some time reflecting on the meaning of Christmas and for this blog I try to reflect on how the meaning of Christmas interacts with bioethics....
View ArticleAbortion and viability
By Steve Phillips There has been considerable reaction to the recent passage of a New York State law a regarding abortion. It has been celebrated by those who support a woman’s choice to have an...
View ArticleHuman germline gene editing is not a solution for genetic diseases
By Steve Phillips I have said this before (see post on 12/5/18), but since otherwise intelligent people continue to say that we should pursue human germline gene editing because it can be used as a...
View ArticleAre pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid crisis?
Steve Phillips Recently a major pharmaceutical company settled a lawsuit with the state of Oklahoma for $270 million. The state had alleged that the company’s marketing of OxyContin had helped to fuel...
View ArticleMen without chests
By Steve Phillips One thing that is essential for us to be able to think well about bioethics is an understanding of who we are as human beings. One aspect of that which has been discussed on this...
View ArticleParental responsibility in medical decisions for children
By Steve Phillips The 2 posts on this blog this week by Neil Skjoldal and Mark McQuain raise issues related to parental decision-making for the medical treatment of their children. Neil raised this...
View ArticleParental responsibility in childhood immunizations
Steve Phillips Last week I wrote about the issue of parental responsibility and medical decision-making for children. We have good reasons for having parents be the primary decision makers for children...
View ArticleEnding well
By Steve Phillips This past week I attended the CBHD summer conference. This year’s theme was “Taking Care: Perspectives for the End of Life.” As usual, the conference was filled with thought-provoking...
View ArticleReclaiming the Lost Art of Dying
As I continue to reflect on the recent CBHD bioethics conference, there are several of the sessions that stand out to me. One was the presentation by John Kilner at the conclusion of the conference...
View ArticleSuicide in older adults
There is much discussion and debate within bioethics about the permissibility of physician-assisted suicide, but less discussion about suicide in general. We also spent a lot of time talking about...
View ArticleMedical care as I get older
I have been thinking about this for a while, and even more since I recently retired from practicing medicine (but not from teaching) and realized while working through our retirement plans that my...
View ArticleWhat Christian ethics is not
About this time in the semester, after discussing some basic things about the discipline of ethics and looking at some of the main ethical theories in western philosophical ethics, I begin a discussion...
View ArticleWhy do we do this?
Many of the posts on this blog involve cautions that there are things in medicine which we are capable of doing and which some want to do that we should not do. Much of the time those cautions go...
View ArticleScreening that benefits the screener
I teach it course on human diseases for students in a public health program. One of the things that we talk about is asymptomatic disease. If a disease has no symptoms the only way that we can detect...
View ArticleThe importance of premises
In an interesting article in the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum, titled “Hannah Arendt in St. Peter’s Square,” Joseph Fins and Jenny Reardon write about the importance of deep ethical reflection in...
View ArticleRights of conscience and the distinction between needed and desired treatment
Rights of conscience, the moral concept that physicians or other medical providers should be able to choose not to provide or participate in medical treatments which they believe to be morally wrong,...
View ArticleGiving thanks for life
The “bio” in bioethics means life. Although it includes other types of life the focus of bioethics is on human life. The announcement a year ago of human infants born in China after their genes had...
View ArticleDementia and the value of human life
Recent public reporting of some cases in Canada of people with dementia whose lives have been ended by euthanasia have caused me to think about the value of human life in those who have dementia....
View ArticleGood news
The angel who surprised some shepherds outside of Bethlehem brought them good news. They were told that a baby had been born who would be a savior and that they were being invited to go and see him. I...
View ArticleNew technology, old moral problem
Many of our discussions in bioethics are about whether the things that are possible to do with advances in medical technology are things that we ought to do. However, some of the moral concerns in...
View ArticleIs personhood a biased term?
In ethics it is very important to communicate with clearly defined terms. This becomes especially important when dealing with a very divisive topic such as abortion. Fifty years ago, in the ethical...
View ArticleWithdrawing life-sustaining treatment from an infant and rights of conscience
The is currently a legal (and ethical) debate in Texas over the treatment of a one-year-old infant, Tinslee Lewis (see articles in the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram)....
View ArticleCoronavirus 2019: A case of fear as a harm from technology
One of the ethical concerns in modern medicine is whether new technology developed out of a desire to help people may cause more harm than good. Most of the time we think about this in relation to...
View ArticleRacial justice and being created in the image of God
I have a friend who teaches public health. We share a common faith and a common commitment to living out that faith. However, we have different priorities. In medicine he focuses on the overall health...
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