Worth Your Time: Selections from the Bioethics Library
C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. Distinguished Fellow The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture
Adam Kirsch, The Revolt Against Humanity: Imaging a Future Without Us (Columbia Global Reports, 2023)
In this dystopian non-fiction work, Kirsch, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, claims that the future will be better off without human beings. As he puts it in the introduction, “the premise of the book is that the revolt against humanity is a real and significant phenomenon even if it is “just” an idea, and its predictions of a future without us never comes true.” The revolt against humanity is, as he puts it, “a spiritual ...read more
WHO’s in Charge? WHAt’s in Store?
Executive Director
The World Health Organization (WHO), through the governing World Health Assembly (WHA) has proposed changes to the International Health Regulations (IHR) that eliminate human dignity, human rights, and freedoms of persons. The Article by Article Compilation of Proposed Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) submitted by States Parties in the context of Decision WHA75(9)2 shows the changes, noted by strikethroughs, underlining, and bold text. A strikethrough deletes existing text, and proposed new text is underlined and in bold font. Many changes are afoot. Only a few are considered here.
One change to Article 1 of the document (see NOTE 1 below) ...read more
Worth Your Time: Selections from the Bioethics Library
C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. Distinguished Fellow The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture
The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession by Farr Curlin, MD and Christopher Tollefsen
Written by a palliative care physician/ethicist and a philosopher, The Way of Medicine is both diagnostic and prescriptive. Curlin and Tollefsen begin by showing readers why medicine is in crisis. At the heart of the crisis is the “provider of services model” (PSM) as the role of the physician which has not only eroded the profession qua a profession, but has helped to make medicine just another consumer good. Physicians are merely providers and patients ...read more
Editing Our Future
The recent (March 6-8, 2023) meeting of the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing in London has brought ethical concerns about heritable human genome editing to the forefront once again. Recall that the previous meeting five years ago exploded into international furor over revelations from He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who edited the genomes of three embryos and brought them to term. He was jailed for his actions in China and was only recently released. Apparently, he is unrepentant and still harboring visions of reactivating his genome editing pursuits. Not surprisingly, ...read more
What Does It Take to Alter Our Next Generation?
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
I have been thinking about how one generation proactively alters the succeeding one. As I contemplated this conundrum, I found myself writing a story instead of a list. That story was published as a SALVO blog piece, and the link is below. The “angsty” pirate lives in a dystopia created by childhood desire, indulgent parents, a cooperative, complicit medical-industrial complex, and a legal climate in which desire is codified into law. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Click here to read the story. Then, send any comments to us through the Contact Us feature here ...read more
Bringing Medical Precision to the Trigger Law in Tennessee
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
The abortion debate is heating up in Tennessee – again. Why? Abortion was legal in the state for many years until recently. In 2019, Tennessee passed an abortion “trigger” law that would become effective 30 days following the overturning of Roe v. Wade – which happened in 2022. The Human Life Protection Act became the law of the State, and abortion is now illegal. Not everyone is pleased with this state of affairs, so amendments to the law are being considered this week.
Suddenly, it seems, health care professionals and others are interested in this law. Questions have ...read more
EctoLife: A Cautionary Tale
Joyce A. Shelton, Ph.D. Professor of Biology Emerita Trinity International University In the December 2022 TN-CBC newsletter article entitled Déjà vu all over again, D. Joy Riley drew our attention to the parallels between the recently released YouTube video EctoLife: The world’s first artificial womb facility, and the fake publicity for the movie GATTACA 25 years ago. The new video, while actually conceptual, presents ectogenesis, the complete development of a baby in an artificial womb, as a current reality. Once again, a number of viewers were fooled. Unfortunately, it is perhaps more realistic than we dare to think. In a revealing interview by Beau Davidson with the Ectolife ...read more
Déjà vu all over again
By D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
The past couple of weeks have reminded me of the quote attributed to Yogi Berra, “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again.”
Twenty-five years ago, the film, Gattaca, was released. One of the fake ads for the movie is pictured here. Thousands of people responded to the advertisements for the film, thinking it was the real deal.
In the past two weeks, multiple people have sent me the link to a new video, EctoLife: Concept Unveiled for the World’s First Artificial Womb Facility. Some are concerned that this is happening now; comments found online show a significant ...read more
A Day in the Life of a Patient
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
30 November 2022
Her son asked if I could be there by 9:00 A.M., when the hospitalist would likely make rounds. I agreed, and made the three-hour journey on a Monday in November. My friend was the patient, and I, a visitor. What I saw in the ensuing hours made me beyond sad.
A nurse came in to “take her vitals.” That meant she wheeled in a cart with various measuring components: a wristband to measure blood pressure, a probe to take the patient’s temperature, and a pulse oximeter to measure blood oxygen content. The patient was ...read more
More Transitions
It is with much sadness that the Board and Executive Director of The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture announce the death of Board Member William “Bill” Peter, of Hendersonville, TN. Bill has served humbly but with distinction as a Board Member since the inception of this organization. He will be sorely missed. We extend our condolences to his family.
Resquiescat in pace, our brother and friend
D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director
Our September e-newsletter contained an article by Joyce Shelton, Ph.D., “For the Safety of Our Children.” It was about the medical transitioning of gender-dysphoric children. ...read more
