As China Rises, Must Others Bow?

'In God we trust, all others (must) bring data'.

"Blood don't lie": the diseased family in Flannery O'Connor's Everything that rises must converge.

At the age of thirty-nine, Flannery O'Connor succumbed to her body's battle with itself. Stricken when she was twenty-five with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, the autoimmune disorder that eventually took her life and that killed her father before her, O'Connor spent the last fourteen years of her life a dependent invalid in her mother's home. In this essay I will argue that O'Connor's struggle w...

The use of executed prisoners as a source of organ transplants in China must stop.

Internationally accepted ethical standards are unequivocal in their prohibition of the use of organs recovered from executed prisoners: yet this practice continues in China despite indications that Ministry of Health officials intend to end this abhorrent practice. Recently published articles on this topic emphasize the medical complications that result from liver transplantation from executed ...

Treating Others Merely as Means

In the Formula of Humanity, Kant embraces the principle that it is wrong for us to treat others merely as means. For contemporary Kantian ethicists, this Mere Means Principle plays the role of a moral constraint: it limits what we may do, even in the service of promoting the overall good. But substantive interpretations of the principle generate implausible results in relatively ordinary cases....

Developing nations face challenges as breast cancer rises.

P atients suspected of having breast cancer at a public clinic in Mexico City returned an average of seven times before receiving a definitive diagnosis; those diagnosed waited more than 6 months on average for treatment. In eastern Nigeria, 30% of women with symptoms of breast cancer refused biopsies, and more than half declined surgery when their disease was confirmed. These examples are part...