It is sometimes said that desperate circumstances require desperate measures. But desperation can also lead to the exploitation of the vulnerable. Such would be the case if we created a market in live-donation human kidneys. Read More ›
A bill proposed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is far too extreme since it contains a sweeping definition of "assisted reproductive technology," which goes beyond the deregulation of the IVF industry, and would legalize human cloning, surrogacy, gene editing, human-animal chimera hybrids, and other abuses of human embryos. Read More ›
The science and medical journals have become highly ideological on many of the most important and contentious societal issues of the day, ranging from global warming to gender ideology, to critical race theory, to virtually everything woke. Read More ›
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 is fast advancing that could make this dystopian prospect a reality. Read More ›
Israeli researchers appear to have created what they are calling “synthetic mouse embryos,” using embryonic stem cells — without fertilization — and developed them about halfway through a normal mouse period of gestation. Read More ›
The harm done to science by fraudsters, data manipulation, sloppy peer review, ideological bias, and outright lying by public scientific spokespersons cannot be overstated. There’s only one cure to the current malaise: unremitting and apolitical scientific excellence. Read More ›
If it were up to the doctors, Tinslee Lewis would have been in her grave before age one. Instead, in a legal and advocacy triumph affirming the proper relationship between patient/family and doctors, the intrinsic equal dignity of the seriously ill—as well as a testament to the power of a mother’s love—the now 3-year-old Tinslee has gone home, still ill but very much alive. Read More ›
China has become the world capital of ethically dubious scientific research. Perhaps even that is too tactful. More accurately stated, China is the land where science ethics go to die. Read More ›
I have sometimes gotten in trouble among the bioethics crowd for claiming that their field is more of an ideological movement than a dispassionate discourse. But know this: When a bioethicist speaks, unless there is a modifier such as “conservative” or “Catholic” before the term, that person is almost surely a political progressive. Read More ›