Informed Consent: A Hazy Concept

Blog, C. Ben Mitchell, End of Life, Other Voices / /

C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. Distinguished Fellow The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture

We’re all too familiar with those awkward television commercials for drugs whose names cannot be pronounced because they have too many consonants. To be fair, drug manufacturers have run out of eloquent ways to combine the letters of the alphabet, so they just string them together as best they can. But beyond the alphabet soup, the television voice recites a sometimes-arresting list of possible complications of taking the drug: dizziness, insomnia, tiredness—or the even more arresting—intense sexual or gambling urges and explosive diarrhea, which hopefully do not occur simultaneously! The ...read more

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GATTACA: 25 Years On

Blog, Born Human, Emerging Technologies / /

Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University

(Editor’s Note: The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture screened GATTACA at the end of June at the international bioethics conference held by the Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity at Trinity International University. Dr. Shelton presented opening remarks, which, lightly edited, are presented here.)

The movie, GATTACA, is entertaining to watch as is, but is also rife with symbolism and subtle—and some not so subtle—philosophical messages. 25 years on: it has proved to be prescient in a number of ways.

GATTACA depicts a dystopian world in which there is a new type of social ...read more

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What Does Autonomy Have to Do with It?

Blog / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

On the second day of May, 2022, a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion in the Mississippi Dobbs case, regarding abortion, was leaked to the media. The resulting cultural distress frenzy has been somewhat akin to dropping meat into a pool of piranhas. Much energy is being spent in projecting what will happen if the final decision resembles the draft. A summer of rage is being threatened by some abortion supporters.

Where, O where, is reason in all of the verbiage? Interestingly and amazingly, a book of compassionate pro-life counters to abortion advocates was published by Moody ...read more

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Why “Provider” is a Four-letter Word

Blog, United Kingdom / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

Family and friends of Dr. Robert D. Orr recently gathered in Vermont to mark his passing. Due to previous COVID restrictions, this celebration of his life took place almost a year after his passing. Dr. Orr, a nationally-recognized physician and medical ethicist, was a mentor to many, many physicians and medical students, including this writer. He is sorely missed.

It is fair to say that Dr. Orr despised the term “provider” as an appellation of a physician. He once surprised a colleague of mine who had submitted a paper to him. He told my colleague that ...read more

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Who is He and what has he done to our children?

Blog, China / /

  Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University

Remember He Jiankui? He is the Chinese scientist who used CRISPR technology to edit the CCR5 gene for the HIV receptor in the genomes of human embryos. His goal was to make them HIV resistant. He reported at an international conference in 2018 that two of the edited embryos had resulted in the live births of non-identical twins, Nana and Lulu. There were also reports of a third child born in 2019. His revelations in a public forum provoked moral outrage from the scientific community. Global pressure caused Chinese authorities to suspend ...read more

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I Should Have Read More History

Blog, Medicine & Health / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director

As a teenager, I decided I wanted to be a physician — to help people. I also naively thought that medicine was apolitical. I should have read more history. If I had, I might have come across the story of Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis.

Semmelweis was born to Hungarian parents slightly more than 200 years ago, in 1818. Although he began to study law, he ended up graduating from medical school in 1844. Other plans of his changed as well. When he did not land a position in internal medicine, he spent four extra months training to ...read more

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Life and Choice

Blog, United States / /

Janet Liljestrand, M.D., M.A.

In 1862 Louis Pasteur performed the definitive experiment that proved even the smallest organisms, those only seen under the microscope, derived from other like organisms. (1) Life came from life. Fast forward to 1973, and Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority decision in Roe v. Wade stated “We need not resolve the difficult decision of when life begins”. (2) What was the Justice’s definition of life? The human zygote contains all it needs for cellular division–and thus growth–at the union of a living sperm and living egg. How then has its human life not begun? Yes, in ...read more

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Guinea Pigs

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Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University

Successful xenotransplantation, animal donor to human recipient organ transfer, is the holy grail for medical doctors and scientists who study organ transplant. Why? Approximately 107,000 people are awaiting organ transplant in the US. Most will wait up to 2 to 3 years. About 17 people die per day because there are not enough organs available to meet the demand (1). Animal organs that have been genetically engineered to remove tissue molecules that cause transplant rejection would go a long way toward relieving the organ shortage.

A recently proclaimed major transplantation breakthrough attracted widespread ...read more

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Risk versus Benefit

Blog, COVID-19 / /

Janet Liljestrand, M.D., M.A.

Whether we realize it or not, we weigh the benefit versus the risk of most decisions, large and small. When making medical decisions, physicians will sometimes refer to the risk/benefit ratio. A math problem with numbers? Unfortunately not, but a clinical judgment seeking to determine if the benefit that this particular patient is likely to receive is greater or lesser than the risks the patient will be assuming with the procedure or medication.

Childhood immunizations risks are often stated to be less than one in a million. With such a low risk, the benefits are great by comparison. ...read more

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Human Dignity — A First Principle

Blog, C. Ben Mitchell, United States / /

C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. Distinguished Fellow The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture

After the horrific human rights abuses of Nazi Germany were revealed at the end of World War II, an international tribunal was held in Nuremberg to try those who were responsible for the Holocaust. Hard on the heels of those Nuremberg Trials (1945-46) followed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which enshrined the notion of human dignity, declaring that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of ...read more

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