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Statement on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing

November 2, 2019 • Posted in Blog
The Tennessee Center for Bioethics & Culture responds to the Public Call for Evidence for the International Commission* on the Clinical Use of Human Germline Genome Editing

 

Given that According to the canons of research on children, experiments are only ethically justified when there are clear benefits to that individual child and proportional burdens to that child. Risks and burdens beyond truly “minimal” to individual children are not justified to benefit other children. To do so is to treat one child as a means to another child’s ends (i.e., to instrumentalize that child).

 

Whereas Human germline genome editing is experimentation on embryonic humans who cannot give consent, ...read more

Life Without Us?

November 2, 2019 • Posted in Blog

By Jane Patton, Guest Columnist

It is not new that some people say that they do not want to bring children into the world. And, as far as the do’s and don’ts of being environmentally responsible, the carbon footprint of a single human being tops the list of avoidable behaviors. One presidential candidate even advocates abortion as a way to combat climate change. So, it may be okay to have one or two children. Any more than that and parents might be called selfish.

But, a growing movement is taking the idea of limiting births to the next level—preventing all births. Who ...read more

Selling the Fantasy of Fertility — NYT Opinion

September 12, 2013 • Posted in Atlas

“Selling the Fantasy of Fertility”

By Miriam Zoll and Pamela Tsigdinos

11 September 2013

Philadelphia Abortion Clinic Horror: Column — USAtoday.com

April 14, 2013 • Posted in Atlas

By Kirsten Powers

Originally published 11 April 2013

We’ve forgotten what belongs on Page One.

Perils of Newborn Screening — Scientific American

July 3, 2012 • Posted in Atlas

Doctors may be testing infants for too many diseases.

By Ariel Bleicher

2 July 2012

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=perils-of-newborn-screening

The Ovolution of the Three-Parent Embryo

June 17, 2012 • Posted in Blog
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

Donor treatments for mitochondrial DNA disorders are ethical — Nuffield Council on Bioethics (Press Release)

June 14, 2012 • Posted in Atlas

http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/11991/

Philosophies, as well as Actions, Have Consequences*

March 10, 2012 • Posted in Blog

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

Executive Director

29 February 2012

It was Horace Mann who said, “Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.”  If that habit is of thought, it becomes a philosophy.  Whether that habit is of thought or action, there are attendant consequences.  Let’s consider children in this light.

Whether one thinks that babies are commodities, “not yet persons,” or a heritage, those philosophies have consequences.  Recently, Theresa Erickson came face-to-face with the consequences of viewing babies as commodities (wire tap recordings).  Ms. Erickson, the author of ...read more

FSBO (For Sale By Others) Babies

September 2, 2011 • Posted in Blog

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

Executive Director

As the airline steward offered newspapers to passengers, the front page story about child-snatching and selling in China caught my eye (International Herald Tribune, 5 August 2011). In at least one mountainous region of China, parents have not been assured of keeping the children they birth. The Ministry of Public Security recently announced that 89 children had been rescued from child traffickers, but it is the local government that the populace of Longhui County fears. In that county, family planning officials reportedly seized at ...read more

THIRTY embryos created for every baby born by IVF . . . and thousands are thrown away — Daily Mail Online

July 23, 2011 • Posted in Atlas

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017821/THIRTY-embryos-created-baby-born-IVF–thousands-thrown-away.html