Ethics Headlines
#84

Volume 2, Number 30                                               Friday, August 18, 2006


Ethics Headlines is an ethics-in-the-news clipping file published each Friday by Polytechnic School teacher Greg Feldmeth. 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--select the headline to read the article
  • Teen with cancer can forgo chemotherapy. A 16-year-old cancer patient 's legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family's attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy.
  • Aboriginal gap prompts call for new 'paternalism'. Australia's health minister Tony Abbott documents poor delivery of health services and questions policy of self-determination...Abbott's report revealed that indigenous life spans are, on average, 17 years shorter than those of the general population. He went on to write that the problem was not a lack of government spending but the "culture of directionlessness in which so many aboriginal people live."
  • A blogger shines when news media get it wrong. Charles Johnson uncovered doctored war photos distributed by Reuters, forcing the news service to retract them. Mr. Johnson, one of the most influential, popular, and disliked political bloggers in the United States, says his site offers an "alternative filter": The news comes in and something approaching the truth comes out. Critics, however, say he has an agenda of his own - one that's anti-Muslim, pro-Israel, and full of hate.
  • Overcoming adoption’s racial barriers. When Martina Brockway and Mike Timble, a white couple in Chicago, decided to adopt a child, Ms. Brockway went to an adoption agency presentation at a black church to make it clear they wanted an African-American baby...Ms. Brockway’s black friends were supportive. “But,” she said, “I also sensed that there was maybe something they weren’t saying.” Mr. Timble cut in. “Like maybe they were thinking, ‘What do these people think they are doing?’ ”


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