Book Review: Ghost Boy

Blog, Book Reviews / /

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

How do we treat the vulnerable among us? Ghost Boy, by Martin Pistorius with Megan Lloyd Davies, is an excellent book to help us explore this question.

Martin Pistorious was a 12-year-old South African school boy when he became ill in 1988. Over the next year, he became wheelchair bound and mute, and spent much of his time over the next 14 years in institutions. That is not the end of the story, however, and he, with Megan Lloyd Davies, tells the story of his awakening and subsequent life in Ghost Boy (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2013).

Martin’s inability to ...read more

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Public Comment before the FDA Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee, 25 February 2014

Blog, Engineering Humans, Resource Room, United States / /

Good afternoon, Members of the Advisory Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am Dr. D. Joy Riley, the executive director of The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture, an educational not-for-profit organization headquartered in Nashville, TN, dedicated to promoting human dignity in the face of challenges to what it means to be human, and to informing and equipping people to face the vital bioethics issues of the 21st Century.

I am a physician by training, and hold a graduate degree in bioethics as well. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today.  I have no conflicts of interest to report.

It is remarkable ...read more

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Sowing the Seeds

Resource Room, Visual Commentary / /

Sowing the Seeds Commissioned work by Carol Harkness for The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture

“Sowing the Seeds, Reaping the Whirlwind” is a metaphoric illustration depicting the consequences of human commodification. Commodification of humans means treating human bodies or body parts as something to be bought, sold, or in some way exchanged in a kind of market. This can occur in a variety of ways, as pictured from left to right:

unFAIR TRADE: obvious evils in abuse of humans

ONE WORLD: “socially acceptable,” potentially attainable human goods seen as “compassionate” in their use

C’est moi Boutique: ...read more

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The Ovolution of the Three-Parent Embryo

Blog, Born Human, Resource Room / /
By D. Joy Riley, M.D., M.A. Executive Director The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture The United Kingdom presented the rest of the world with Louise Joy Brown in July, 1978, the first test-tube baby.  They convened what became known as the Warnock Committee to advise Parliament regarding the new reproductive technologies:  “what policies and safeguards should be applied, including consideration of the social, ethical, and legal implications of these developments, and to make recommendations.” (Warnock, A Question of Life, 4.)  The Warnock Committee by a slim margin approved a variety of reproductive adventures, including ...read more

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Choosing Wisely — an initiative of the ABIM Foundation

Medicine & Health, Resource Room / /

Nine United States specialty societies representing 374,000 physicians developed lists of “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question” in recognition of the importance of physician and patient conversations to improve care and eliminate unnecessary tests and procedures.

http://choosingwisely.org/?page_id=13

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