Conflicting View about the Review Process for Ashley X
In 2007, a developmentally disabled 7-year old girl underwent procedures in a Seattle hospital to stop normal growth. The Ashley X case created headlines and raised a host of ethical questions. Those issues are revisited in the January 2010 issue of The American Journal of Bioethics. Here, two bioethicists, one who supported the process of review followed by the ethics committee and the other who did not, discuss why such procedures should or should not require a court order. The bioethicists are Dr. Norman Fost, Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. John Lantos, Director of Children's Mercy Hospital Bioethics Center in Kansas City, and past John B. Francis Chair at the Center. (January 22, 2010, Norman Fost)
Cultural Fault Lines in Healthcare
Cultural fault lines exist in healthcare with clashing moral traditions, principles, values and beliefs, according to Michael Brannigan, PhD, the Pfaff Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Values at the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York. Dr. Brannigan examines how healthcare institutions have responded to these cultural fault lines. His most recent book is entitle "Cultural Fault Lines in Healthcare: Reflections on Cultural Competency." May 3, 2012
Pros and Cons of using Organs Donated by Living or Executed Prisoners
Arthur Caplan, PhD, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses an October 2011 article in the American Journal of Bioethics, which considers the pros and cons of using organs donated by living or executed prisoners. (October 11, 2011)
Implementations of New HIV Testing
An article in the April 2011 issue of the American Journal of Bioethics addresses ethical concerns over new recommendations for HIV testing, which appear to focus on implementation rather than the recommendations themselves, as discussed here with article co-author Teresa Celada of Wheaton College. (April 15, 2011)
When Public Health Officials Collaborated in Crimes Against Humanity
Susan Bachrach, Curator US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Jean Zeldin, Executive Director, Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, discuss the long path to genocide, including ideas about eugenics, which created an environment in which physicians and public health officials collaborated in crimes against humanity.
Transforming Bioethics: Sensitivity to Cultural Differences
Standard bioethics is ripe for transformation. Richard Payne, MD, John B. Francis Chair at the Center and Esther Colliflower Professor of Medicine and Divinity at Duke Dvinity School, Duke University, provides a preview of his Flanigan Lecture, where he argues that cardinal principles of ethics (autonomy, non-malfeasance, benificense and justice) may over-emphasize autonomy to the detriment of underserved people from different cultural perspectives. (July 14, 2011)
Spirituality and Race in End of Life Care
What does spirituality and race have to do with end of life care? Terry Rosell, Rosemary Flanigan Chair, and Richard Payne, MD, professor at Duke University and John B. Francis Chair at the Center, discuss disparities in healthcare in African American populations and how they impact care at the end of life prior to presenting a program on the same subject to African American faith leaders in Topeka on July 27, 2011.