In 2017, Carson and Flood outlined a general duty to be vaccinated, arguing from Catholic social teaching on justice, love, solidarity and the common good. This necessarily relied on assumptions about the typical nature of vaccination, assumptions which do not always hold true in concrete situations. I identify twelve criteria that, where they hold, strengthen the particular duty to be vaccinated, and, if not met, weaken or reverse it. These pertain to the biological agent which vaccination aims to protect against, (...) the vaccine and its supply, the costs and benefits of vaccination to the individual and society, and the alternative courses of action. The two-way relationship between the moral duty to be vaccinated and vaccine mandates is discussed. Individuals and policy-makers need to know these criteria – and be provided the necessary information to evaluate vaccination against them – in order to make a truly rational judgement. (shrink)

This article argues that environmental considerations fall within the scope of medical bioethics, and there are implications specific to medical education. It endorses the need to expand the scope and epistemology of contemporary medical bioethics discourse by including themes related to environmental considerations. Our discussion begins by providing a brief history of environmental bioethics. It then offers a critique of three specific health and environmental issues, namely technology, toxics, and consumption, and discusses how these issues are key to articulating moral (...) considerations of human health and subsequently medicine and its teaching. Lastly, it explores criticisms of including environmental issues into the bioethical debate before providing suggestions of how environmental ethics can be included into the medical curriculum. This article concludes by suggesting theoretical possibilities for environmentally inclusive bioethics, such as reorienting bioethical discussions to its original environmental advocacy and supporting environmental bioethics as a competency in medical education. (shrink)

When a judgment begins ‘counsel made some bold submissions’, this is usually a sign the judge found the argument unconvincing. Dr Martin – Tutor and Fellow in Constitutional and Human Rights Law at...

Good conversation and debate make a significant contribution to the practice of bioethics. Persuasion, logical and rational argument form part of this but the art of reflection and asking questions...

Triage protocols can exclude older patients for the sake of effectiveness and this may be defended as the older have already had their fair share of life, which can mean fair amounts or complete lives. Nevertheless, if life is considered as a narrative, mentioning amounts might be nonsensical. Narratives have a quality of unity; so, life events are fragments whose meanings are dependent on the meaning of the whole. Thus, time units do not represent a reliable measure of the content (...) of life. In addition, people's experience is different from the external flow of time, making its significance relative. Moreover, to compare the completeness of lives qualitatively, it is necessary to have a common cultural understanding, which is improbable to agree on in a modern society. Therefore, basic assumptions of the accounts that refer to fair shares of lives are mistaken, and these accounts do not support age-based rationing. (shrink)

I argue against responsibility arguments that offer a defence of abortion even on the assumption that the fetus is a person. I focus on argumentation originally offered by Judith Jarvis Thomson and then later defended by David Boonin. I offer thought experiments meant to show that, under certain conditions, one bears moral responsibility for creating a fetus. I then offer a positive argument for when one is morally responsible for the creation of a fetus. This argument relies on the presence (...) of other forms of sex that reasonably approximate the goods of penile-vaginal intercourse. Given the presence of these options, sexual partners who engage in penile-vaginal intercourse bear moral responsibility for the creation of the fetus. While I do not think this argument settles the abortion debate – there still may be other ways to successfully defend abortion – it does explain why responsibility arguments like those offered by Thomson fail. (shrink)

Maximilian Storz argues that physicians have an ethical obligation to recommend a plant-based diet to patients because such a diet: relieves certain chronic conditions, outperforms the Western diet (e.g. a diet containing animal products, among other things), and is ecologically sustainable. Contrary to these claims, I argue that a plant-based diet alone may not relieve chronic conditions, but potentially does so in combination with other lifestyle factors. With respect to the environment, I illuminate the landscape by discussing agricultural factors consistent (...) across animal and plant farming such as energy and water. I conclude that physicians ought to recommend a diet that follows the science; such a diet as I have claimed is exclusionary: it excludes processed foods, especially added sugars. Lifestylfe factors also deserve to be discussed in the medical encounter as their incorporation may lead to even better health outcomes. (shrink)

Drawing on his distinguished philosophy training and years of award-winning university teaching, Graham McLean, of Charles Sturt University, Australia, has produced a refreshing and far-reaching ac...

Drawing on his distinguished philosophy training and years of award-winning university teaching, Graham McLean, of Charles Sturt University, Australia, has produced a refreshing and far-reaching ac...

As the new Cell-free DNA (Cf-DNA) prenatal screening test for Down syndrome was being introduced into the UK’s fetal anomaly screening program, Down syndrome charities had an opportunity to participate. An experience of co-production where we were the minority voice then followed. This paper explores that process and our experience as a charity. Institutional and societal structures meant that it was difficult to be heard and a significant amount of bias was noted within the program. Consequently, our viewpoints were often (...) considered and then dismissed. However, at times we were listened to, and feel that there were some valuable changes made resulting from our involvement. The end product was far from reflective of all that we stand for, and there are still lessons to be learned in England about the need to place a higher value on minority voices of lived experience in a co-production exercise. (shrink)

This special issue of The New Bioethics follows on from a conference that took place at St Stephen's House, University of Oxford, in March 2022, on ‘Prenatal Testing, Disability, and the Ethical So...

Why conscience matters is a landmark in the literature on conscientious objection in healthcare. In it, Xavier Symons, bioethicist and postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, makes the...

As we attempt to move on from the Covid-19 pandemic, the mounting pressures on health and social care are striking for all to see. Many of the articles in this issue speak to this theme: access to...

Kay Toombs is an influential ethicist and disability scholar. In a new edition of her book How Then Should We Die? Two Opposing Responses to the Challenges of Suffering and Death, she critiques soc...