Payment for research participation has raised ethical concerns, especially with respect to its potential for coercion. We argue that characterising payment for research participation as coercive is ...

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, ...

Use of a placebo control in surgical trials is a divisive issue. We argue that, in principle, placebo controls for surgery are necessary in the same way as for medicine. However, there are important ...

In Australia and Oregon, USA, legislation to permit statutory sanctioned physician-assisted dying was enacted. However, opponents, many of whom held strong religious views, were successful with repeal ...

The COVID-19 pandemic is putting the NHS under unprecedented pressure, requiring clinicians to make uncomfortable decisions they would not ordinarily face. These decisions revolve primarily around ...

Healthcare professionals’ capacity to protect themselves, while caring for infected patients during an infectious disease pandemic, depends on their ability to practise universal precautions. In turn, ...

Objective: Contemporary ethical accounts of the patient-provider relationship emphasise respect for patient autonomy and shared decision making. We sought to examine the relative influence of ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated an imbalance between the clinical needs of the population and the effective availability of advanced life support (ALS) resources. Triage protocols have thus become ...

“Run-in” and “washout” periods involving the withholding of medication are widely used in drug research trials in pursuit of both patient safety and scientific reliability. Such no-medication periods ...

This paper spotlights ways in which sexual capacities relate to central human capabilities, such as the ability to generate a personally meaningful story of one’s life; be physically, mentally and ...

Over the last quarter of a century, English medical law has taken an increasingly firm stand against medical paternalism. This is exemplified by cases such as Bolitho v City and Hackney Health ...

The marketing of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the psychopharmacological industry presents a serious moral problem for the corporate model of medicine. In this paper I examine ethical ...