Trisha Tucker, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The US is seeing more campaigns to ‘protect’ children by barring controversial books. But research shows children’s reading experiences are complex and unpredictable, explains a literature professor.
More than 20% Americans live in a state with access to a medically assisted death.
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Terminally ill patients who seek an assisted death have no desire to end their life. Calling their decision ‘assisted suicide’ can have harmful consequences.
A patient seeking abortion services at the Women’s Reproductive Clinic in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Robyn Beck /AFP via Getty Images
People penalized for violating a group’s shared rules could go on to disrupt its functioning, out of revenge. Two scholars suggest a way of imposing rules.
Views around opposition to abortion may be more complicated than what might appear on the surface.
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A sociologist found in her research that many Americans who are opposed to abortion may nonetheless be willing to support a friend or family member seeking one.
Members of the Association of Transgender and Hijra at Bengal light a lamp to mark Transgender Day of Bengal in Kolkata, India, in 2017.
AP Photo/Bikas Das
A sociologist explains that the ability to claim transgender identities in India may appear progressive, but this can further marginalize historically stigmatized gender-nonconforming groups.
Over the past couple of decades there has been a shift away from upholding patient autonomy to prioritizing public health.
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New ethical issues are emerging during COVID-19 as doctors struggle with their obligations to ‘do no harm’ and respect patient autonomy.
Many celebrities have expressed concerns about bodily autonomy while refusing COVID-19 vaccination.
Photo Illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A food historian spent a month at the Library of Congress trying to answer the question of why we have historically been, and remain, so focused on dietary protein. Here is what she found.
In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, with his brother Tamerlan, put bombs along the Boston Marathon route, killing and injuring many.
Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Punishment for crimes allows a society to express its values, but a theorist of criminal law and punishment argues it could also reinforce prejudicial stereotypes about racial and ethnic groups.
Nurses holding babies born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers in capital city, Kyiv.
Sergei Supinsky/ AFP via Getty Images
Surrogacy can be exploitative, but a theologian writes how it can also remind individuals that family is not just biological but also social and relational.
An entovegan might happily eat an insect burger like this one, believing that their diet is both sustainable and ethical.
Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images
Insect farming is growing in popularity as an alternative to traditional livestock and feed production. A scholar evaluates what that means in terms of trillions of insect lives.
People wait in line to receive a vaccine shot against COVID-19 in Belgrade, Serbia, Aug. 17, 2021. Serbia and other countries have started administering booster doses. Meanwhile, more than half the world’s population has not had a first dose.
AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic
America’s founders accepted the reality of human selfishness. But, they also said people were capable of thinking for the good of the whole, which is necessary for a free society.
A handover ceremony as U.S. troops prepare to leave Afghanistan.
Afghan Ministry of Defense Press Office via AP
There is much at stake as the US withdraws troops from Afghanistan. A political philosopher explains why the US cannot escape the moral consequences of its actions.