Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryEthics

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The white owl

J. K. Rowling Comes Out Against Legalizing Assisted Suicide

The mega author , of Harry Potter fame, is definitely a political liberal

Liberal leaders of popular culture usually boost assisted suicide when they take a side. I hope her advocacy convinces the Lords to kill the bill, not the ill.

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Senior man sitting looking at photo album with male nurse

Will We Care For or Kill Dementia Patients?

I believe that people need to be aware of the unthinkable actions, once (properly) deemed abandonment, that are now being advocated at the highest levels of cultural influence

Thaddeus Mason Pope’s argument is an argument not to avoid suffering but to not be a “burden” and to put oneself out of loved ones’ misery.

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Man supporting a disabled friend in wheelchair at home

Wielding ALS Suffering to Expand Assisted Suicide into Euthanasia

The most effective opponents of assisted suicide are disability rights activists because they — correctly, in my view — see the movement as discriminating against them 

My late friend Robert Salamanca had ALS (I met him as a hospice volunteer) and was furious that people like him were used by activists to further the death agenda.

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Close up of classified document top secret

Part 2: What If We Apply Harris’s “No Lies” Rule to Warfare?

As a former defense contractor, let me offer a view from reality

Sam Harris treats every lie as if it predictably spirals into atrocity. But most lies are judged against uncertain futures, not guaranteed horrors.

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male homeless sleeping in a street

Kilmeade: ‘Just Kill’ Mentally Ill Homeless Who Refuse Help

Kilmeade, who later offered a terse apology, is not a would-be TikTok influencer. He is a major personality on the country’s most watched cable news channel

Kilmeade — and Fox — should apologize. And perhaps he should work to keep his emotions in check while broadcasting. With great influence comes equal responsibility.

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Comatose male patient in hospital.

California: Experiments on People with ‘Life-Shortening’ Conditions

“Life-shortening” conditions is not the same thing as "terminally ill"

If such invasive procedures would be deemed unethical for the healthy regardless of consent, then it should be considered wrong to so experiment on the sick.

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Businessman with long nose

Lying: Sam Harris Buckled Under the Weight of Absolutism

Part 1: Having written a book on why it is always wrong to lie, he shamelessly buckled when a particular outcome mattered to him

If lying breeds chaos, so does truth-telling in the wrong contexts. Prudence, not absolutism, has to govern.

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Organ transplantation medical professional in a rush, following a strict procedure with an organ transplant case

Reuters Pulls Vid Where Xi Hails Organ Transplants for Longevity

Putin didn’t seem to care much about what he was heard to say about organ transplants but China is known to harvest organs from doomed political prisoners

When dictators adopt transhumanism, it won’t just be Ray Kurzweil trying to upload himself to digital immortality. There will be a very dark side.

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Modern day slavery, illegal trade of human organs on the black market and forced organ harvesting of death row inmates concept theme with a liver, heart and kidney with price tags and a barcode

Xi and Putin Are Transhumanists – Are You Surprised?

Transhumanism is mostly a materialistic wail of despair in the night, a desperate quest for hope for those who are terrified that death leads to obliteration

It wouldn’t surprise me if Xi has a political prisoner all tissue-typed and ready to be sliced and diced should the need arise.

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Euthanasia Medical Intervention

The Netherlands Already Allows Infant Euthanasia

It’s only logical. If killing is an acceptable answer to suffering, why limit the killing to adults?

Canada has jumped so enthusiastically into the euthanasia abyss that I have little doubt that infanticide will eventually be allowed there.

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Pensive indian girl lost in thoughts suffering from depression

Study: Mental Illness More Likely After Abortion Than Childbirth

This large, broad-based study was published in a mainstream, peer-reviewed journal by authors not identified with the pro-life movement

If informed consent and “choice” are to mean anything, abortionists should be duty-bound to inform pregnant women about this risk.

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Vials with Sodium pentobarbital used for euthanasia and lethal inyecion in a hospital, conceptual image

The Atlantic Details the Horrors of Canadian Euthanasia

The story includes examples of people who have had themselves killed because they couldn’t access proper support services, and many other cases

MAiD turns some suicides and homicides into a “good.” A 2023 poll found that 28% of Canadians polled favored allowing euthanasia for homelessness.

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Panoramic view of the Earth, sun, star and galaxy. Sunrise over planet Earth, view from space. Elements of this image furnished by NASA

Only Bioethics Can Save the Planet! Really?

Some bioethicists want to include “planetary health” among the disciplines for which they propose ethical rules

Hopefully, the growing hubris of bioethicists who think they can tackle the world’s most intractable problems — even war — will push them into irrelevance.

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Nurse helping sick senior women to eat fruits at hospital - concept of healthcare, medicare and caretaker

Should Caregivers Be Forced to Starve Dementia Patients to Death?

If you did such a thing to a dog, you would go to jail. When will we say, “Enough: This is too much to ask”?

A very influential bioethicist supports forcing caregivers to cause death by dehydration and starvation, even when a patient willingly eats.

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Comatose male patient in hospital.

Killing for Organs Pushed in the New York Times

Beware of efforts to “broaden” the definition of death to address the shortage of transplant organs

Redefining as dead someone who is actually living would subjectivize the value of human life. We are either all equal while alive, or we are not.

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Woman doctor with stethoscope takes an oath at the beach, symbolizing medical commitment in serene seascape.

Attacks on Medical Conscience: Forcing Doctors to Take Human Life

As more states legalize assisted suicide and abortion through the ninth month, the medical conscience issue is again bubbling to the surface

The movement to quash medical conscience has been ongoing for many years and it has become politically partisan.

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Medical professional carefully carries an organ transplant container down a hospital corridor, hoping to give someone a second chance at life

Organ-Procurement Lapses Threaten Trust in Transplant Medicine

Something appears to have gone badly off the rails in the field of procuring organs after heart death

The push for organs has apparently grown so intense that corners may be being cut, endangering still-living patients and treating them as so many organ farms.

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Suicide and support

Swiss Death Clinics Celebrated By Suicide Pushers

One Swiss clinic even “prioritizes people who are elderly but not seriously ill”

Geriatric suicides used to be considered a tragedy. But these days, increasingly, they are celebrated.

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Robot in jail made with Generative AI

Grok as Hitler II?: What Really Happened and What It Means

The long-postponed reckoning about what chatbots can and can’t really do is sure coming on fast

A vast army of boosters is portraying chatbots as magic when their usefulness is limited by realities that are probably a hard limit.

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Modern IVF micromanipulator with Petri Dish in the laboratory of the in vitro fertilization. for insemination of the egg freezing. Sperm cryopreservation. Ovum fertilization procedure

Michael Shermer Disagrees With Me on the Ethics of IVF

He sees a contradiction between my respect for and embrace of children conceived via IVF and my ethical qualms about the process of IVF: “Another example of how religion clouds rationality”

It is quite possible to seek good ends (children) by bad means (their industrial manufacture). That’s why Christian ethics are needed.

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