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Keywords: Bioethics

  • AUSTRALIA

    Once upon a time in multicultural Australia

    • Zac Alstin
    • 20 January 2012
    17 Comments

    Embracing an individualistic Australia that transcends ethnic heritage would leave us with a culture that is young, thin and commercialised. If we wish to promote unity and equality, the best thing we can do is learn our own forgotten stories of ethnic heritage.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Myths of wartime good and evil

    • Zac Alstin
    • 15 August 2011
    22 Comments

    It is a weakness of human nature that we forgive in our friends what we despise in our enemies. If Germany or Japan had achieved a nuclear weapon and launched it on an Allied city, our condemnation would be unrelenting.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aborting abnormality

    • Zac Alstin
    • 12 July 2011
    112 Comments

    Research suggests that 85 per cent of Australians support legal access to abortion for 'severe disabilities', and 60 per cent for 'mild disabilities'. While we encourage tolerance and diversity in our multi-ethnic society, our medical culture is moving in the opposite direction.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Forgiving Japan

    • Zac Alstin
    • 23 June 2011
    27 Comments

    The disasters in Japan early this year left scenes of destruction reminiscent of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Australian experiences of Japanese wartime cruelty have never been forgotten or forgiven. But the problems are not all on the Japanese side.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Human stories of IVF

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 07 October 2010
    17 Comments

    In seeking to fill a mother's empty womb, Nobel Prize winning biologist Robert Edwards developed a solution. In so doing he confirmed what all innovators know: that progress doesn't occur in a neat and orderly vacuum, and nor should it be halted for fear of what it might produce.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Resisting the duty to die

    • John Kleinsman
    • 21 September 2010
    11 Comments

    The debate about euthanasia arises only in certain societies that see the world as belonging to those who are independent, strong and productive. In a society in which the sick, dying, disabled and elderly are undervalued, the 'right' to die will all too quickly become a 'duty' to die.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Taking science back from the scientists

    • T. J. Martin
    • 20 July 2010
    17 Comments

    I believed it was not right to manufacture human embryos for research, but I decided to use scientific arguments against this. In fact that made the task easier. It was truly astonishing to see how regularly very bad science was presented publicly by scientists who wanted to do such work.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Choosing the sex of your child

    • Kevin McGovern
    • 08 April 2010
    3 Comments

    The media has reported that Australia's ban on couples using IVF to choose the sex of their children might soon be lifted. Some of the supporters of sex selection for non-medical reasons are fertility doctors for whom there is a considerable financial incentive.

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  • RELIGION

    Toothless, Trojan or true to Trinitarian anthropology

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 January 2010
    1 Comment

    The full text of Frank Brennan's January 2010 address to the Australian Association of Catholic Bioethicists, 'Toothless, Trojan or True to Trinitarian Anthropology? Reflecting on the 2009 National Human Rights Consultation'. 

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  • RELIGION

    Churches confused on Human Rights Act

    • Frank Brennan
    • 28 January 2010
    22 Comments

    Cardinal Pell thinks Church positions on contested moral issues have a better chance of being reflected in law and policy if parliaments are not constrained by a Human Rights Act. I would beg to differ. Gone are the days when church leaders can do deals with politicians behind closed doors.

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  • RELIGION

    Patient autonomy and the doctor's conscience

    • Frank Brennan
    • 18 September 2009
    4 Comments

    In Life and Death: How do we honour the Patient's Autonomy and the Doctor's Conscience? Frank Brennan's Sandra David Oration at St Vincent's Clinic, Darlinghurst, Sydney, 17 September 2009.

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  • RELIGION

    Euthanasia: doctors' conscience vs patient rights

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 March 2009
    2 Comments

    The medical pledge to do no harm no matter what the cost effective benefits, and the conscience of the doctor are still key elements in any law which promotes good medicine. –Frank Brennan, addressing the Medico Legal Society of Victoria

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