CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part IV)

Blog, Emerging Technologies, Engineering Humans, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United States / /

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

This is part IV of our report. View part I, part II, or part III.

The ability to edit genes using CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has been in the news for more than a year. A committee has been appointed to advise our government regarding the editing of genes, particularly editing the genes of the human embryo.

Who are the members of that committee? What are their views? The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture has been working to gather information for you, our readers.

Here is a brief look at some of the writings and organizational ...read more

CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part IV) Read More »

CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part III)

Blog, Emerging Technologies, Engineering Humans, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United States / /

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

This is part III of our report. View part I, part II, or part IV.

The ability to edit genes using CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has been in the news for more than a year. A committee has been appointed to advise our government regarding the editing of genes, particularly editing the genes of the human embryo.

Who are the members of that committee? What are their views? The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture has been working to gather information for you, our readers.

Here is a brief look at some of the writings and organizational ...read more

CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part III) Read More »

CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part II)

Blog, Emerging Technologies, Engineering Humans, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United States / /

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

This is part II of our report. View part I, part III, or part IV.

The ability to edit genes using CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) has been in the news for more than a year. A committee has been appointed to advise our government regarding the editing of genes, particularly editing the genes of the human embryo.

Who are the members of that committee? What are their views? The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture has been working to gather information for you, our readers.

Here is a brief look at some of the writings and organizational ...read more

CRISPR — Who’s in Charge? (Part II) Read More »

Taking stock: Where are we now?

Blog, Emerging Technologies, End of Life, Engineering Humans, Genomic & Genetics Issues, United Kingdom, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Taking stock of where one is at the beginning of a new project or a new year is a good idea. Where we are in the entire realm of bioethics is beyond the scope of one blog post, but what follows are some landmarks discernible in January 2016…

Physician-Assisted Suicide

On Sunday, 24 January, John Jay Hooker, Tennessee lawyer, politician, and activist, died. Mr. Hooker had most recently championed “death with dignity” — physician-assisted suicide — in a proposed bill and in the courts. By the time of his death, neither the legislature nor the courts had provided ...read more

Taking stock: Where are we now? Read More »

We Were There…

Blog, United States / /

As the year 2015 comes to a close, we at The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture look back over a year of involvement in a number of important bioethics issues.

1) We were there when the Tennessee Senate Health and Welfare Committee met in Legislative Plaza Room 12 on 9 June 2015 to hear testimony regarding “Death with Dignity,” otherwise known as Physician-assisted Suicide (P-AS). We heard the testimony of John Jay Hooker and others promoting the bill. The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture stayed after a prominent news anchor and her television crew left the hearing. We stayed so we ...read more

We Were There… Read More »

CRISPR: What is it? Who decides what we do with it?

Blog, China, United Kingdom, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

What is it?

Imagine a word processor for genes, where you could search for a defective gene, find the mutation, cut it out, and replace it with the proper DNA sequence. The cutting and replacing part of the process is what CRISPR and its associated (Cas) systems do. They are enzymes used to clip out particular sections of DNA in a cell’s nucleus, and replace the removed sections with other DNA segments, presumably replacing “defective” DNA with “good” DNA.

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) were first described in 2012, and the technique was used in human ...read more

CRISPR: What is it? Who decides what we do with it? Read More »

Why Did Gosnell Keep Severed Fetal Feet?

Blog, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

Regrettably, in defending human dignity, we are often confronted with circumstances in which humanity is degraded. Warning: The following graphically details some of those circumstances brought to light.

The 2011 report of the Grand Jury investigating abortionist Kermit Gosnell included a number of strange details about his place of business, including, “The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses” (p. 21).

Image from LifeNews.com.

Why would anyone do this?

Fast forward to the summer of 2015 and the Center for Medical Progress, which released a series of ...read more

Why Did Gosnell Keep Severed Fetal Feet? Read More »

Chancellor McCoy and the Way of Wisdom

Blog, Europe, United States / /

D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A.

What does Tennessee have to do with Switzerland (featured in the fake ad pictured below)? Less than it could have, given yesterday’s decision to uphold the State of Tennessee’s ban on assisted suicide. The decision by Chancellor Carol L. McCoy has the rather counter-intuitive effect of the State winning without someone losing their head. Read on below for the details . . .

Fake ad image from Salvo, used with permission.

“If you can keep your head when all about you, Are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . ...read more

Chancellor McCoy and the Way of Wisdom Read More »