Is ʻsurrogacyʼ an infertility treatment?

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
Astridur Stefansdottir

In this article, it is argued that it is problematic to construe the debate around the process labelled ‘surrogacy’ as a form for infertility treatment. Firstly, this way of defining what happens opens up a new form of medical desire where a growing number of people wish to have children through ‘surrogacy’. This medicalizes childlessness and creates pressure within health services to respond to the desires of an ever-growing group of patients. Secondly, this labels the woman who carries the child as a ‘surrogate’ and defines her as a core element in a ‘treatment method’. This way of phrasing and defining what happens puts the woman carrying the child in an unacceptable moral position within the health system. Thirdly, by viewing the woman carrying the child as a ‘substitute’ for a mother or as a ‘temporary custodian’ ignores the unique relationship between the foetus and the pregnant woman. To keep the ethical issues in focus in the ‘surrogacy’ process, it is necessary for health professionals to always accept the woman who goes through gestation and birth as the mother of the child. This unconditional acceptance shifts the core of the process away from the idea of ‘treatment’ and towards ‘adoption’ as the defining element in the process. Consequently, it will be easier to accept ‘surrogacy’ as a complicated and wide-ranging process as well as to secure the basic human rights of the pregnant woman and the welfare of the child being born.

Author(s):  
Angèle Flora Mendy

By examining policies of recruiting non-EU/EEA health workers and how ethical considerations are taken into account when employing non-EU/EEA nurses in the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland, this chapter intends to show that the use of the so-called ‘ethical’ argument to convince national public opinion of the relevance of restrictive recruitment policies is recent (since the 1990s). The analysis highlights the fact that in addition to the institutional legacies, qualification and skills—through the process of their recognition—play an important role in the opening or restriction of the labour market to health professionals from the Global South. The legacy of the past also largely determines the place offered to non-EU/EEA health professionals in the different health systems of host countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Arvind Ashta

Sustainable Development Goal 16 talks about Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, and goal 10 talks about reducing inequality. A major problem exposed by the COVID-19 crisis is that public deficits seem to be the normal state in the business cycle’s booms and downturns, limiting capacity for emergencies. Corporate capitalism has an incentive to perpetuate deficits to increase growth, provide risk-free interest income to financial institutions, and to increase inequalities and economic injustice. To counter this problem, the purpose of this communication is to suggest that countries need to issue equity capital, which we term macro-equity. This macro-equity will give dividends to its shareholders in times of public surplus and issue new shares in times of public deficits. The communication is written as a mind experiment, debating the issues that may arise. This proposal raises many questions of an ethical and moral nature that will lead to passionate debate. The use of macro-equity will reduce countries’ stress, created by high public debt. With appropriate incentives, it may create an entrepreneurial mindset in political leaders that may even reduce corruption and promote redistribution. The moral and ethical issues need to be weighed against the street violence in the absence of any change.


Author(s):  
Sarah A. Fisher

AbstractFraming effects occur when people respond differently to the same information, just because it is conveyed in different words. For example, in the classic ‘Disease Problem’ introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, people’s choices between alternative interventions depend on whether these are described positively, in terms of the number of people who will be saved, or negatively in terms of the corresponding number who will die. In this paper, I discuss an account of framing effects based on ‘fuzzy-trace theory’. The central claim of this account is that people represent the numbers in framing problems in a ‘gist-like’ way, as ‘some’; and that this creates a categorical contrast between ‘some’ people being saved (or dying) and ‘no’ people being saved (or dying). I argue that fuzzy-trace theory’s gist-like representation, ‘some’, must have the semantics of ‘some and possibly all’, not ‘some but not all’. I show how this commits fuzzy-trace theory to a modest version of a rival ‘lower bounding hypothesis’, according to which lower-bounded interpretations of quantities contribute to framing effects by rendering the alternative descriptions extensionally inequivalent. As a result, fuzzy-trace theory is incoherent as it stands. Making sense of it requires dropping, or refining, the claim that decision-makers perceive alternatively framed options as extensionally equivalent; and the related claim that framing effects are irrational. I end by suggesting that, whereas the modest lower bounding hypothesis is well supported, there is currently less evidence for the core element of the fuzzy trace account.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zabaidah Haji Kamaludin

An Islamic system of governance is an ideal system, which is a tantalising objective for many Muslims but often times not achieved in practice. Countries may call themselves ‘Islamic’ but the core element of Islamicity, that of values such as compassion, equity and justice may not have breached the consciousness of their leaders and citizens. Sometimes it is individuals who act as the catalyst for sparking action. For a Muslim, it is his īmān that serves to light his conscience, and guiding him the dispensation of his everyday tasks within his organisation. This individualised īmān may at times serve as a small but critical factor tilting the different organisational functions of government towards integrations under an Islamic system of governance. This paper recounts the challenges of a Muslim engaging in legal issues in a non-Islamic context, seeking to help enable his organisation to undertake the role of incorporating non-Islamic law with Islamic values.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-332
Author(s):  
Ingo Heidbrink

The articles in this Forum are revised versions of papers presented in a roundtable session of the XXII International Congress of Historical Sciences, which was held in Jinan, China, during August 2015. In line with the roundtable format deployed by the congress, a broad proposition was introduced in the opening paper, followed by four responses delivered by experts in the field and a plenary discussion of the issues raised by the speakers. In this session, the proponent, Ingo Heidbrink, discussed the development of maritime history as a historical sub-discipline in relation to the emergence of world (and global) history. Particular attention was afforded to the comparative growth rates of these cognate sub-disciplines, and to the reasons why maritime history has expanded relatively slowly, leading to the emergence of a ‘blue hole’ in our knowledge and understanding of the past. The four respondents then addressed the issues raised by Heidbrink from their own disciplinary and regional perspectives. As Heidbrink’s ‘Concluding Remarks’ indicate, all participants agreed that, in itself, the allocation of a session to this subject on the core programme of the congress was a significant recognition that maritime history is a historical sub-discipline that is of relevance to the wider global community of historians, and not just those who are interested in the interaction of humans and the oceans.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Little ◽  
Alison Winch

Our case study looks at the events surrounding the sacking ofGoogle engineer James Damore who was fired for authoring a memo which stated that women are biologically less suited to high-stress, high-status technical employment than men. Damore, asserting that his document ‘was absolutely consistent with what he’d seen online’, instantly became an ambivalent hero of the alt-right. Like the men who own and run the companies of Silicon Valley, the software engineer subscribes to the idea that the world can be understood and altered through the rigorous application of the scientific method. And as he draws on bodies of knowledge from evolutionary psychology and mathematical biology, we see how the core belief structures of Silicon Valley, when transferred from the technical to the cultural and social domain, can reproduce the sort of misogynistic ‘rationalism’ that fuels the alt-right. We argue that Damore’s memo is in line with Google’s ideology of ‘dataism’: that is the belief that the world can be reduced to decontextualised information and subject to quantifiable logics.Through its use of dataism, the memo reveals much about the similarities and continuities between Damore, the ideas laid out n his memo, and Google itself. Rather than being in opposition, these two entities are jostling for a place in the patriarchal structures of a new form of capitalism.


Author(s):  
Rashim Wadhwa

International student mobility is the core element of the internationalization of higher education. In recent years, a significant change has been observed in the outlook of individuals which is giving a boost to this phenomenon. Within this context, the present chapter analyzed the phenomenon of international student mobility through different approaches by providing critical outlook. An attempt has been made to list the important determinants which influence the decision-making process of international students.


Author(s):  
Recep Erin ◽  
Kübra Baki Erin ◽  
Derya Burkankulu Ağırbaş ◽  
Burcu Kemal Okatan

<p>We aimed to present a case with abdominal wall endometriosis following cesarean section in this case report. <br />A 32 year old 39 weeks pregnant woman with G2P1 was admitted to gynaecology clinic with abdominal lump and pain in the midline. Her physical examination included a hard and painful palpable subcutaneous mass of 4x5 cm size in the midline of the abdomen which was semisolid and irreducible. <br />Under general anesthesia, the mass on the rectus muscle was excised with the healthy tissue around with the diagnosis of endometriosis during cesarean section and the pathological diagnosis was reported as endometriosis.<br />Surgical excision is the best treatment method in abdominal wall endometriosis. <br /><br /></p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Érick Igor dos Santos ◽  
Yasmin Rayanne Alves ◽  
Antonio Marcos Tosoli Gomes ◽  
Aline Cerqueira Santos Santana da Silva ◽  
Diego Bonfante Mota ◽  
...  

Aims:  To  analyze  the  social  representations  of  nursing  by  non-nursing health professionals. Method: This is a descriptive, exploratory research, with a qualitative  approach,  using    Social  Representation  Theory  as  a  structural  approach.  A total of 53 non-nursing health professionals participated in this research. The technique used to collect the data was based on free and hierarchical opinions, using the inductor terminology “nursing”. D ata analysis was treated through the software E VOC  2005. Results:  The  following  are  among  the  core  terms  used  to  socially  represent  nursing: care,  team,  responsibility  and  work.  Discussion:  It  was to  form  a  balance  between the functional,  normative,  and  perceived  image  of  the  representation,  which  includes cognitive  and  evaluative  elements.  There  is  a  positive  view  towards  the  study  object. Conclusion:  This  representation has  been  carefully  presented  as  professionals  relate to concrete  and  tangible  formats  to  express  the  nursing  professional,  and  then  they  are able to reconstruct the object nursing.


Ethical issues inherent in psychiatric research and clinical practice are invariably complex and multifaceted. Well-reasoned ethical decision-making is essential to deal effectively with patients and enhance their care. Drawing on the positive reception of Psychiatric Ethics since its first publication in 1981, this highly anticipated fifth edition offers psychiatrists and other mental health professionals a coherent guide to dealing with the diverse ethical issues that challenge them. This edition has been substantially updated to reflect the many changes that have occurred in the field during the past decade. Its 25 chapters are grouped in three sections, as follows: 1) clinical practice in child and adolescent psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, psychogeriatrics, community psychiatry, and forensic psychiatry; 2) relevant basic sciences such as neuroethics and genetics; and 3) philosophical and social contexts including the history of ethics in psychiatry and the nature of professionalism. Principal aspects of clinical practice in general, such as confidentiality, boundary violations, and involuntary treatment, are covered comprehensively, as is a new chapter on diagnosis. Given the contributors’ expertise in their respective fields, Psychiatric Ethics will undoubtedly continue to serve as a significant resource for all mental health professionals, whatever the role they play in psychiatry. It will also benefit students of moral philosophy in their professional pursuits.


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