This Week in Bioethics

by Jennifer Lahl and Matthew Eppinette on August 12, 2016

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1. When is it Too Old to Have a Baby? Another post-menopausal woman (age 62), along with her 78 year old partner, has just given birth, making her Australia’s oldest mother, thanks to IVF. The Australian Medical Association has denounced this birth as “selfish and wrong” with no consideration for the child’s best interest. This […]

TWO of Our Films Selected for Festival

by Matthew Eppinette, CBC Executive Director on August 9, 2016

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We’ve just received some great news. Our films Maggie’s Story and Eggsploitation are BOTH Official Selections of the Silicon Valley International Film Festival. The festival will be held in December, and we are very excited to be able to participate. Thank you — we could not have made and distributed these important films without your […]

This Week in Bioethics

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1. UNFPA Announces Opposition to Commercial Surrogacy The Phnom Penh Post reports that the United Nations Population Fund opposes the legalization of commercial surrogacy. This is an important development as Cambodia considers how surrogacy should be treated in the country in the wake of high-profile surrogacy scandals in Thailand, India, and Nepal. “Reproductive health, surrogacy, […]

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Assisted Suicide is Not Medicine

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Dr. Philip Dreisbach, a California oncologist and hematologist, recently wrote an excellent and compelling piece on the dangers of physician assisted suicide. Unfortunately, the article remains locked behind the Wall Street Journal’s pay wall. Allow me then to highlight a few sections of Dr. Dreisbach’s writing, quoting from it more extensively than I normally would. […]

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Maggie’s Story on Amazon

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In July of last year, we released our first documentary short film, Maggie’s Story, on the Vimeo On Demand website. Today we are very pleased to announce that Maggie’s Story is now available on Amazon. For those who are Amazon Prime members, Maggie’s Story is FREE! Others may rent the film for $2.99 or purchase […]

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Happy Birthday CBC!

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In the summer of 2000, Jennifer Lahl received the final paperwork establishing the Center for Bioethics and Culture as a non-profit 501(c)(3) public benefit educational organization. It has been my great privilege to work with Jennifer here at the CBC since 2009, and be a part of what she has created and built. And, of […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. This Needs to be Read and Shared as Widely as Possible California oncologist and hematologist Dr. Philip Dreisbach writes in the Wall Street Journal as clearly and urgently as I have seen about the perils of physician assisted suicide. He begins by highlighting some of the problems specific to California’s recently enacted assisted suicide […]

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New Survey Reveals Americans Wary of Faking Life

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A number of outlets are reporting this week on a new survey that reveals a wariness among American adults toward biotechnologies that can be used for enhancement purposes. The survey of 4,700 adults also involved six focus groups to allow researchers to delve into the reasons behind the survey responses. The main takeaways from the survey […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Maltese Political Party Rejects Euthanasia The Alternattiva Demokratika party of Malta has rejected euthanasia and assisted suicide, and instead is seeking to emphasize the importance of living wills and palliative care in public policy. We also encourage the use of living wills. Even better is a durable power of attorney for healthcare that is […]

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Shouldn’t Public Policy Protect People from Worst Case Scenarios?

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I’ve just finished testifying by phone before the Minnesota Legislative Committee on Surrogacy. The committee is holding a series of meetings on the issue this summer, and each meeting has a specific focus. Today’s meeting addressed the health and psychological risks of surrogacy to women and children, and my testimony below reflects this. Of course […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Dutch Doctors and Self-Starvation Our friend Wesley Smith has reviewed a document from the Dutch Medical Association that provides directions for doctors who are helping their patients commit suicide by self-starvation. Among the many deeply disturbing guidelines in the document, perhaps this is most chilling: “Older patients need not be advised against consciously choosing not […]

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Baby Markets: Financial Market Expert Weighs In

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I recently interviewed David Bahnsen, a highly regarded, California-based investment manager and expert in financial markets about his views on markets and children. Jennifer Lahl: I live in the back yard of the Silicon Valley, where, stealing from my colleague Dr. Bill Hurlbut at Stanford, we like to say, “We have a front seat on the […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Priorities at the VA The department of veterans affairs this week released the preliminary results of a new study on suicide among veterans. “In 2014, the latest year available, more than 7,400 veterans took their own lives, accounting for 18 percent of all suicides in America. Veterans make up less than 9 percent of […]

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How Much Further Down the Road of Artifice Should We Travel?

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The cover story in July 4 edition of Time magazine examines the gene editing technique known as CRISPR. The article is helpful for understanding the basics of the science of CRISPR, and it raises a number of the ethical issues involved—the unknowns of heritable genetic changes, the potential for weaponization, imperfections in the technique itself. […]

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Help Jennifer Lahl Attend the Aspen Ethical Leadership Program

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Our Jennifer Lahl has been invited and accepted into The Aspen Ethical Leadership Program. This prestigious program accepts only 100 people, so it is a true honor to be one of a handful of people hearing from a list of leaders involved with healthcare and ethics. The program is run by the Aspen Center for […]

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This Week in Bioethics

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1. Hippocratic Telemedicine? Perhaps, like me, you have received emails from your health insurance company or seen ads on your social media letting you know about options that will allow you to “see” a health care provider by phone, email, webcam, or even text. According to the Wall Street Journal, if you haven’t received such […]

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FREE Anonymous Father’s Day Extended

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We are extending the free viewing of Anonymous Father’s Day on YouTube through the July 4 holiday weekend! We want to make sure as many people as possible get a chance to see this film. Watch it and please help us spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

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Writing a Book on Surrogacy

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A New Book on Surrogacy by Melinda Tankard Reist and Jennifer Lahl: Seeking Contributors We are seeking contributions for a new global collection of first-person accounts by women who were surrogate mothers. The book will be edited by Melinda Tankard Reist (Australia) and Jennifer Lahl (US), and will be published by Spinifex Press for release […]

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