Shift and Puzzle: What do an ape and a donkey have to do with bioethics?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
In C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, Shift is a shrewd, crafty ape, and his neighbor, Puzzle, is a meek, somewhat simple donkey. It has been a long time since Aslan, the all-powerful lion, has been seen in Narnia. Therefore, when Shift spies an old lion skin, he decides to have Puzzle dress up in it and pretend to be Aslan. Shift constantly insists that Puzzle do all the heavy-lifting involved in any of their escapades, but in such a way that Puzzle thinks he is getting the ...read more
What Say You?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. Director National Institutes of Health 9000 Rockville Pike Bethesda, Maryland 20892 execsec1@od.nih.gov
17 December 2018
Dear Dr. Collins:
The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture lauds the position of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as evidenced by your concluding statement of 28 November 2018: “NIH does not support the use of gene-editing technologies in human embryos.” As embryonic humans represent the most vulnerable amongst our species, the NIH is correct to protect them. Moreover, to protect future generations from the machinations of clinical ...read more
Crossing a Bright Red Line: Human Embryo Editing
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
On Monday of this week, He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, shocked the scientific world prior to the beginning of a conference on gene editing. Dr. He announced a first: that he had edited the genes of embryos for seven couples undergoing fertility treatments, and that one pregnancy has resulted to date. It should be noted that there is no corroboration of this claim currently: it is an announcement; no scientific paper has been published about it.
Some of the specific claims, published in The Guardian, are as follows:
All of ...read moreWhat if we call it “Medical Aid in Dying”?
A Lesson from History
In the aftermath of WWII, Leo Alexander penned the following as part of an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine:
The Example of Successful Resistance by the Physicians of the Netherlands There is no doubt that in Germany itself the first and most effective step of propaganda within the medical profession was the propaganda barrage against the useless, incurably sick described above. Similar, even more subtle efforts were made in some of the occupied countries. It is to the everlasting honor of the medical profession of Holland that they recognized the earliest and most subtle ...read more
How Do We Promote Human Dignity?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
A week ago, I was privileged to tour portions of a few of the buildings in a complex that had previously been used as a state “Hospital for the Insane” in Michigan. Although a number of the buildings have been repurposed into condos, restaurants, and shops, the two-hour tour was of several spaces that have yet to be restored. The architect of the original hospital and treatment regimen was a psychiatrist named Thomas Kirkbride. I was impressed by his understanding of human dignity, as represented by his work. The story is fascinating . . .
Thomas ...read more
The Rubicon
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
The law in the Roman Republic in 49 B.C. was very clear about an army crossing a small stream outside Rome: it was considered an act of war. Julius Caesar knew this, and led his 13th Legion across that stream, declaring, in the historian Suetonius’ words, “The die is cast!” Caesar and his army did not turn back, but continued on to war, and ultimately defeated Pompey the Great. This turning point in history is referenced whenever we talk about approaching a point of no return and utter the phrase, “crossing the Rubicon.”
“The Rubicon” sculpture ...read more
The ACP Releases a Position Paper on Physician-Assisted Suicide
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
On 19 September 2017, the Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights Committee of the American College of Physicians released their position paper on physician-assisted suicide (P-AS). A brief synopsis of it follows…
Re: Ethics and the Legalization of Physician-Assisted Suicide: An American College of Physicians Position PaperThe statement released last week builds on previous work:
1997 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life, which cited “inadequate end-of-life care” in the U.S. 2001 statement by the American College of Physicians, in which the ACP did not support the legalization of P-AS. ...read moreFirst Human Embryos Edited in U.S.: A Bright Red Line Is Crossed
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
“Sooner than we expected”: A friend – a scientist steeped in the bioethics realm – wrote to me of her surprise at the announcement of the first embryonic humans edited in the United States. Steve Connor, writing in the MIT Technology Review, reported the work on 26 July 2017. Doubtless, the publication of the work in a scientific journal will follow.
The article, “First human embryos edited in U.S.” by Steve Connor, describes the process thusly: “A person familiar with the research says ‘many tens’ of human IVF embryos were created for the experiment using the ...read more
