Horseshoe crabs play a unique role in medicine, but they’re also ecologically important in their home waters along the Atlantic coast. Can regulators balance the needs of humans and nature?
A womb transplant can be life changing for the recipient, but there are serious ethical considerations too.
The HeLa line of immortal human epithelial cancer cells was derived from cells taken from Henrietta Lacks when she was a cancer patient in 1951.
(Wellcome Collection: Anne Weston, Francis Crick Institute)
The settlement is a long-awaited moment of victory for Henrietta Lacks and her family. But the battle for justice in genetic and medical research is not over yet.
Hospital ethics committees and consultants do not make decisions for others, but their input can help support doctors and patients navigate difficult dilemmas.
Every extra organ available for donation is potentially lifesaving. And it can be done safely and ethically.
Dutch Health Minister Ernst Kuipers announced that new regulations are being drafted to extend euthanasia to terminally ill children aged one to 12.
Pro Shots/Alamy Stock Photo
New regulations are being drafted in the Netherlands to allow euthanasia for a small group of children aged one to 12 for whom palliative care is not sufficient.
New York City’s plan has garnered the most attention – and criticism – but several cities are expanding their own intervention programs.
Given how quickly MAID eligibility has changed in Canada in the past six years, it is time we take a step back to ask whether current MAID practice is still something we want to support.
(Pexels/Karolina Grabowska)
Since 2016, Canada’s practice of offering MAID has followed a trajectory of ever-expanding eligibility. The ultimate expansion would make MAID available to anyone who wanted it, for any reason.
From next year, uterus transplants are being trialled in Australia. But it’s likely to be a while before they becomes mainstream clinical treatment.
A limited supply of donor organs, paired with a massive demand for transplants, has fuelled the global organ trafficking industry, which exploits poor, underprivileged and persecuted members of society as a source of organs to be purchased by wealthy transplant tourists.
(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
China’s industrial-scale organ trafficking practice has been executing prisoners of conscience and using their organs for transplantation for decades. This is known as forced organ harvesting.
Right to die activist Sean Davison (left) speaks to the press after three years of house arrest.
Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images
People make decisions throughout their lives about their health. But when they are terminally ill they are not allowed to decide when they want to die.
Four basic principles guide the field of medical ethics.
goc/E+ via Getty Images
Refugee camps should only be a temporary solution. They’re no place for ongoing health care.
Surgeons at University of Maryland School of medicine showing the modified pig’s heart that would be transplanted into David Bennett.
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Heart-recipient David Bennett had done jail time for stabbing a man.
If you’re worried about older loved ones’ ability to care for themselves, try starting a conversation with nonjudgmental questions.
MoMo Productions/DigitalVision via Getty Images
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Professor of Bioethics & Medicine, Sydney Health Ethics, Haematologist/BMT Physician, Royal North Shore Hospital and Director, Praxis Australia, University of Sydney