By Remy Servis This week, a team of doctors at The Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania announced that they had completed the world’s first pediatric dual hand transplant on Zion Harvey, an eight year old from Maryland, earlier this month. After he lost his hands and feet to an infection at the age of two, Zion [...]
We are pleased to inform you that Global Bioethics Initiative has been granted special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the United Nations' central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development. It serves as the main mechanism for the activities of the United Nations system, and facilitates collaboration between [...]
By Agata Ferretti In Thailand, a homosexual couple is embroiled in a legal battle with the Thai government. The couple wants to leave the country with their surrogate baby daughter, because the surrogate mother, who is not biologically related to the child, is refusing to give the couple the child because she claims that she [...]
Graduations always signify turning points; we’re so glad that our participants spent these past few weeks with us, and we hope they have learned a lot! We know we have! It is our hope that our students will take what they have learned through our summer program and apply it to their future endeavors, whatever [...]
By Remy Servis In Israel, like in many other countries around the world, the sale of organs for transplantation is illegal. However, a new policy established this week by the National Transplant Center-- an organization formed by Israel’s Ministry of Health in 1994-- guarantees that donors will still be protected and compensated for their contributions. [...]
By Agata Ferretti This week, Planned Parenthood shot into the spotlight to become one of the most scrutinized groups in America. On July 14th 2015, the anti-abortion group The Center for Medical Progress posted a long version of a conversation between a Planned Parenthood executive and undercover actors on YouTube about the “special methods” used [...]
By Remy Servis UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) is the first-ever UN emergency health mission. It was assembled in mid-September 2014 in response to the growing Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The mission’s main objectives were to help treat those already infected (by providing medical, financial, and administrative support to countries in need), [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer This week, a nurse who volunteered with the charity International Medical Corps succumbed to Ebola yesterday in Sierra Leone. She worked at a treatment facility in Kambia, a coastal district that boarders Guinea. In this location, flare-ups of Ebola are still common, and experts warn that the virus is no longer contained [...]
"In the past couple of weeks, those of us who are students at the Global Bioethics Initiative Summer School have learned quite a lot about different bioethical issues. Two lecturers that really made the students think were Dr. James Hughes and Dr. Joseph Fins. Dr. Hughes presented on the Ethics of Life Extension and discussed [...]
We are happy to announce that we are now a member of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI). The UNAI is an initiative operating within the United Nations that promotes partnership among higher education and research institutions and the UN itself. Founded in 2010 by current UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UNAI now has over [...]
