Statement 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?
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
“Selling the Fantasy of Fertility”
By Miriam Zoll and Pamela Tsigdinos
11 September 2013
Philadelphia Abortion Clinic Horror: Column — USAtoday.com
By Kirsten Powers
Originally published 11 April 2013
We’ve forgotten what belongs on Page One.
Perils of Newborn Screening — Scientific American
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
Donor treatments for mitochondrial DNA disorders are ethical — Nuffield Council on Bioethics (Press Release)
http://www.phgfoundation.org/news/11991/
Philosophies, as well as Actions, Have Consequences*
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
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
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017821/THIRTY-embryos-created-baby-born-IVF–thousands-thrown-away.html
