In the September-October 2001 issue of the Hastings Center Report, editor Gregory Kaebnick encouraged bioethicists to turn their attention toward “easily overlooked, relatively little-talked-about societal topics” such as race. In 2000 the president of the American Society for Bioethics had called for a more socially conscious bioethics. Race was risky territory, Kaebnick pointed out, but this challenge did not justify avoidance. Over the next fifteen years, the response to this editor's invitation to examine the racial dimensions of medicine in the (...) Report was limited both in quantity and in terms of the range of topics covered. All told, the bioethics community has not responded to the editor's call for bioethicists to engage with the racial dimension of medicine, and the Report has not really come through on the tacit commitment made in 2001. The lack of interest in race matters evidenced in the Report as well as the American Journal of Bioethics has also prevailed in medical humanities journals, whose few pieces on race have tended to remove race relations from our current realities in two ways: some articles locate medical racism in the American past or in colonial Africa, while others analyze the medical disorders of fictional characters. Bioethicists have not embraced the opportunity to create a sociologically and historically informed bioethics that might be applied to the lives of black Americans and their unending health crisis. (shrink)

In order to reach its full potential, human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research requires the use of human oocytes. There is currently a shortage of human eggs for research, and this shortage is likely to continue, as many states and countries prohibit their sale for research purposes, while at the same time condoning unregulated markets for oocytes for use in assisted reproduction. In this essay I first explore possible alternative sources of oocytes for hESC research and conclude that, at present, (...) women are the best source. I then examine arguments about exploitation and commodification that are often raised to prohibit payment to women for oocytes in both the reproductive and research contexts and find these arguments wanting. I conclude by suggesting that ethical concerns raised about a market in oocytes do not warrant a prohibition on the sale of eggs, but that a regulated market can consistently minimize ethical concerns while respecting women and providing important resources for advances in hESC research. (shrink)

Through the use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), multiple children are born adding to worldwide carbon emissions. Evaluating the ethics of offering reproductive services against its overall harm to the environment makes unregulated ARTs unjustified, yet the ART business can move towards sustainability as a part of the larger green bioethics movement. By integrating ecological ethos into the ART industry, climate change can be mitigated and the conversation about consumption can become a broader public discourse. Although the impact of naturally (...) made children on the environment is undeniable, I will focus on the ART industry as an anthropogenic source of carbon emissions which lead to climate change. The ART industry is an often overlooked source of environmental degradation and decidedly different from natural reproduction as fertility centres provide a service for a fee and therefore can be subject to economic, policy and bioethical scrutiny. In this article, I will provide a brief background on the current state of human-driven climate change before suggesting two conservationist strategies that can be employed in the ART business. First, endorsing a carbon capping programme that limits the carbon emissions of ART businesses will be proposed. Second, I will recommend that policymakers eliminate funded ARTs for those who are not biologically infertile. I will conclude the article by urging policymakers and all those concerned with climate change to consider the effects of the reproductive technologies industry in light of climate change and move towards sustainability. (shrink)

Fair skin is often regarded as a beauty ideal in many parts of the world. Genetic selection for non-disease traits may allow reproducers to select fair skin for the purposes of beauty, and may be justified under various procreative principles. In this paper I assess the ethics of genetic selection for fair skin as a beauty feature. In particular, I explore the discriminatory aspects and demands of such selection. Using race and colour hierarchies that many would find objectionable, I argue (...) that selection for beauty that is underpinned by such hierarchies is not a trivial selection. Given this, I claim that we should not make such selections. (shrink)