Bioethics – Global, National, Local
Health Care Policy, Reproductive Medicine, Genetics and Genomics
From the monthly archives:
In September 2007 I was the keynote speaker at The Molecular Convergence Conference at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa. As I’m a lifelong lover of science fiction, I titled my talk “Science Fiction Becoming Science Fact”. Advances are now coming thick and fast. The exponential growth of information in many branches of science is at [...]
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Prenatal and postnatal genetic enhancement may ultimately result in a post-human society. These techniques remain in the science fiction realm for the foreseeable future, but a consideration of their implications is critically important for our ability to successfully manage their impact.
What might be good concerning genetic enhancement and what might be not so good? In [...]
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As is typical of decision-making in clinical diagnosis, choices in clinical genetics are never straightforward and always lead to subsidiary questions. Similarly in genetics itself, as in physiology or biochemistry, an answer to a question leads to other questions about that answer, and investigators and clinicians are led deeper into the maze.
One undertakes the journey [...]
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What’s so special about gametes that causes us to be concerned about their commodification? Commodification itself is not a bad thing. In free societies, supply-and-demand relationships precisely determine prices. [I'm presupposing the absence of monopolistic practices. In oil production and supply, for example, monopolistic practices skew prices considerably.]
We exchange goods and services all day long, [...]
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The Indian legend of The Three Blind Men and the Elephant is an apt metaphor for any random collection of three biotechnology entrepreneurs. Each is raptly focused on his personal locus, blind to the deep complexity just beyond his grasp.
Of course, “entrepreneur” in the medical field is for many of us a code word for [...]
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Many commentators are concerned that physicians have an agenda when they discuss results of prenatal testing with their patients. Often, physicians have preconceived values regarding what should be an exclusively patient-centered arena. For example, many physicians are predisposed to recommend abortion when prenatal testing reveals the presence of genetic or structural anomalies that would result [...]
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