Ethics Headlines            


Volume 2, Number 4
                            Friday, January 27, 2006


Ethics Headlines is an ethics-in-the-news clipping file published each Friday by Greg Feldmeth, a high school teacher at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. It contains news items from the media in the past week that deal with some area of ethical inquiry.

SUBSCRIBE. You can receive the file via email every Friday afternoon with links to the original articles. Just email your address here and put Ethics Headlines in the subject line. If you know of others who would be interested, please forward the page to them.

This week's headlines--click on the headline to read the full article
  • Are you my sperm donor? Few clinics will say.  Largely unregulated, fertility clinics have long operated under the assumption that preserving anonymity is best for all parties. But as the stigma of infertility fades, the secrecy of the process is coming under attack, both from parents like Ms. Villalba and from the growing number of adults who owe their lives to donors.
  • Why lawyers are liars. Apparently, it's all in a life's work. As a loyal member -- well, as a member -- of the District of Columbia Bar, I am aware of the tension between advocacy and honesty. But until the recent controversies over Supreme Court nominees, I was unaware of the scope and depth of my professional obligation to avoid telling the truth. It apparently spans an entire career in the law.
  • Lying isn't so bad if it makes you feel good. Of course Oprah took the side of veracity-challenged author James Frey, author of "A Million Little Pieces." She is in the feelings business, and you don't succeed in her line of work by favoring facts over deeply felt but untrue stories. The tears that she and her staffers shed while reading Frey's largely concocted tale of crime and addiction made the book important to her.
    • Oprah confronts Frey about disputed memoir. In a stunning switch from dismissive to disgusted, Oprah Winfrey took on one of her chosen authors, James Frey, accusing him on live television of lying about A Million Little Pieces and letting down the many fans of his memoir of addiction and recovery.
  • When does a gift become a bribe? Amid a storm of corruption scandals, more professionals are questioning the ethical nuances of gifts. As members of Congress scramble to take cover amid a storm of corruption scandals, professionals of all stripes have fresh reasons to question whether the business-related gifts they give and receive are truly innocent. Norms vary as to what constitutes a bribe, say ethicists and other experts on the subtle, sometimes manipulative, power of gifts. As a result, individuals in positions of responsibility and trust are likely to get entangled - perhaps tragically - in the absence of explicit policies for what is acceptable.
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