Moral and public health duties of preventing and treating infectious disease in prisons By José de Arimatéia da Cruz and Leigh E. Rich An Unjust Burden “Prisoners go to jail to be punished for offending society and not to get infectious diseases” (Simooya 2010, 33), yet communicable disease rates among prisoners and detainees are consistently […]
12.01.2013
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Theater, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on “As flies to wanton boys”
Dilemmas and dodging in the field of nonhuman animal ethics By Michael A. Ashby and Leigh E. Rich On a daily basis, one of us (MA) drives around the Australian state of Tasmania where the “roadkill” bodies of native animals can be found everywhere, adding up to hundreds of thousands every year. Clearly, if these […]
09.01.2013
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Feminism, Health, Media, Theater, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”
Moral distress and bioethics By Leigh E. Rich and Michael A. Ashby At the tragic end of Shakespeare’s King Lear, Edgar, the son of the Earl of Gloucester, clearly sides with the emotions as he laments the state of the king and his kingdom: “The weight of this sad time we must obey,/Speak what we […]
06.01.2013
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Film, Health, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Eating people is wrong
Or how we decide morally what to eat By Michael A. Ashby and Leigh E. Rich Though from opposite sides of the world and of different genders, religious backgrounds, and professional disciplines (but not necessarily scholarly orientations), we both grew up being fed tales of cannibalism. For one of us (LER), born and raised in […]
12.01.2012
Categories: Books, History, Politics, Religion, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Scientology as case study
What the ethical and legal history of Scientology can teach us about religion By Leigh E. Rich Though in many ways still shrouded in secrecy, Scientology could be said to be one of the most “accessible” religions in the world—that is, in terms of documenting and understanding its origins. Part of this has to do with its young age, […]
09.01.2012
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Feminism, Film, Health, Media, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Today’s “Sexmission”
Editorial for the 9(3) issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry By Leigh E. Rich and Michael A. Ashby The Polish film Seksmisja (Sexmission) opens with a quote from playwright and author Sławomir Mrożek: “Jutro to dziś—tyle, że jutro,” which is translated in the film’s subtitles as “Tomorrow is today—but a day away.” A popular […]
06.01.2012
Categories: Editorials, Ethics, Health, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on Signposts in a familiar land?
Editorial for the 9(2) issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry By Michael A. Ashby and Leigh E. Rich In comedy and humor it is often said that we laugh at what we find most difficult: sex and death and social taboos. In bioethics, we struggle to control—or at least order and contain—ultimately that over […]
03.01.2012
Categories: Ethics, Feminism, Film, Law, Science, Utrinque Paratus | Comments Off on ‘Eggsploitation’
Oocyte (egg) donation is riddled with issues that have few, if any, solutions By Leigh E. Rich In one sense, so-called “third-party reproduction” that uses gametes contributed by anonymous (or known) “donors” is no longer novel (Murphy 2009; Sargent 2007; Sauer 2001; Mastroianni 2001), but the highly profitable IVF industry (now sometimes called “ART” for “artificial reproductive techniques”) is still in […]
