By Michael Lausberg Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero claims to have found a procedure to realize a project in transplant surgery that may strike us as something more fitting for a science fiction movie than today’s reality. He announced that a full body transplant could be possible in the next two years. In a full body [...]
By Caroline Song A 44-year-old male double-lung transplant patient at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, passed away following complications 40 days after his procedure. His death was brought on by hyperammonemia, a state of incredibly high levels of ammonia in the blood. High levels of ammonia lead to brain swelling, which causes the patient [...]
The Center for the Study of Bioethics and The Hastings Center are pleased to announce that they will be jointly hosting the international conference "Enhancing Understanding of Enhancement.” The conference will be held at the Center for the Study of Bioethics in Belgrade on October 27-28, 2015. It will explore various issues pertaining to enhancement, [...]
By Rose Bowen and Michael Lausberg In cases of sexual assault, the issue of consent is of central concern. Establishing that consent was freely and affirmatively given is not always easy. A sexual assault case in Iowa highlighted one such dimension of this complicated issue. Henry Rayhons was accused of sexually assaulting his wife, Donna [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Brittany Maynard, a twenty nine-year-old woman diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, opted to end her life last year; in doing so, she became the new face of the assisted suicide movement. Following her diagnosis, Maynard and her husband moved from California to Oregon so that she would be able to take advantage [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Surgeons in South Africa announced this month that a 21-year-old penis transplant recipient had achieved full urinary and reproductive functionality. The surgery was performed in December 2014; doctors had anticipated that it would take two years for the patient to achieve this level of functionality. Professor Frank Graewe, a member of the [...]
By Richard Balagtas On Tuesday, March 10th, France’s parliament began debating a bill that would allow “doctors to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death comes.” This bill was introduced amidst a heated national debate concerning the legalization of euthanasia. The bill itself avoids the use of terms such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, and lethal [...]
By Dr. Charles Debrovner Most people spend much of their adult lives trying not to have children. During the past fifty years, the ability to make reproductive decisions has expanded significantly to include a wide variety of family planning options. However, when we do want to have children, and conceiving or carrying a pregnancy proves [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer Last August, Thailand gave preliminary approval to a draft law that would make commercial surrogacy a crime; parliament voted 160 to 2 to pass the measure on February 19. The law bans foreigners from seeking surrogacy services in Thailand, a country that has long been a popular destination for first-world couples seeking [...]
By Kaitlyn Schaeffer The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection is very common; the Center for Disease Control estimates that nearly all sexually active males and females will contract it at some point in their lifetimes. HPV can cause sexually transmitted diseases such as genital warts, and cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancers. In 2011, more than 12,000 [...]
