Ethics Headlines            


Volume 2, Number 9
                            Friday, March 10, 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.

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This week's headlines--select the headline to read the article
  • Life of sick baby 'intolerable'. A baby at the centre of a landmark case over whether life support can be withdrawn has an "intolerable life", the High Court has heard. Baby MB, who cannot be named, has spinal muscular atrophy - a genetic condition which leads to almost total paralysis - and cannot breathe unaided.
  • Altruism 'in-built' in humans. Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful, German researchers have discovered. In experiments reported in the journal Science, toddlers helped strangers complete tasks such as stacking books.
  • Ethicists criticize medical study over lack of consent. Medical ethicists are criticizing a study that involves giving trauma victims a blood substitute without their knowledge. The Associated Press reported that the debate over the product known as PolyHeme was re-ignited last week after the Wall Street Journal reported that in a previous study involving heart surgery, several PolyHeme patients suffered heart attacks while those receiving real blood did not, and that the study was abruptly curtailed.
  • PBS' perverse genocide debate. Two weeks ago, PBS stabbed me and every other Armenian American in the back when it announced that its upcoming documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," will be followed on some stations by a panel discussion featuring two so-called scholars who claim that the genocide is a myth.
  • What's so scary about feminism? The other day at work, some colleagues and I were discussing a chain restaurant known for its scantily clad waitresses. I was taken aback for a moment. "They have the best sports bar in my area," one person said. "I hear they have great Buffalo wings," said another. It was a moment of disconnect. "But how can anyone go to places like that?" I asked. "What about the objectification of women's bodies?"
  • The praying figure was folded under. What are the free-speech rights of a 5-year-old? A short and sensible answer would place his rights at plus or minus zero, but today we're talking constitutional law. The lad's rights may be larger than you think. If the Supreme Court takes the case of young Antonio Peck, the justices will try once more to clarify the murky waters of the First Amendment. The case turns on the Constitution's clause guaranteeing the "free exercise" of religion. How free? By whom? Under what circumstances?
  • How consent laws affect abortions. Do parental notification and consent laws, which require girls under the age of 18 to tell their parents or get their permission in order to have an abortion, actually reduce the teen abortion rate?