Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons^™

Suspicion Encoded: Women Of Color And Biometric Technology In The United States, Lilith A. Saylor

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper explores the commodification of privacy through biometric technology in the United States. It examines the impact of this technology on poor women of color (WOC), arguing that poor WOC face intersectional discrimination based on the convergence of sex, race, and class in their identities. I highlight the unique and powerful intrusion of biometric technology into the lives of poor WOC, and argue that the connection between data and the physical body created through biometric data has formed an environment in which the state wields unrestricted control in all spheres over the privacy of poor WOC.

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate And The Racial Multiplier: Clinical Implications And Current Attitudes, Brittney A. Spooner

Honors Theses and Capstones

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality and has high and increasing incidence worldwide. CKD is characterized by a reduction in glomerular filtration rate (GFR), but as GFR is difficult to measure directly, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) equations have been created to measure serum creatinine levels as a function of GFR. Some eGFR equations contain a racial multiplier that increases the eGFR of black patients, causing a spurious increase in reported kidney function. This study included a literature search that collected information on the rationale behind the multipliers usage and a survey that gathered information …

Prenatal Care For Undocumented Immigrants: Implications For Policy, Practice, And Ethics, Rachel Fabi

Population Health Research Brief Series

Nearly 250,000 babies are born each year to undocumented immigrant parents in the U.S. These babies are U.S. citizens, but undocumented immigrants are ineligible for most public insurance, making it difficult for them to access prenatal care. This research brief describes restrictive policies related to prenatal care for undocumented immigrants and discusses how these policies affect health care providers and the care they are able to offer pregnant immigrant women.

Patient Advocacy: A Tool For Resolving Ethical Issues For Patients That Use The Emergency Department For Chronic Care Management, Lawanda Baskin

Journal of Health Ethics

The current state of scientific knowledge on using the emergency department (ED) for chronic care management indicates that using the ED for chronic care management creates health disparities and burdens healthcare systems. Ethical concerns also arise because patients use the ED for chronic care management. This article discusses health literacy, self-care behaviors, and social support and the presence of patient suffering, nonmaleficence, and beneficence in patients who seek care for chronic care management in the ED. Patient advocacy as a tool to lessen these ethical issues is further discussed. Eighty-six participants were used in a cross-sectional correlational predictive study. Findings …

On The Proposed Legalization Of Commercial Surrogacy: I Thought We Had Abolished The Sale Of Human Beings, Phyllis Chesler

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of An Advance Care Planning Protocol To Increase Advance Directive Completion Rates, Christine Engle

Evidence-Based Practice Project Reports

Advanced directives (AD) allow an individual to retain autonomy in end-of-life decisions and can prevent unnecessary costs and treatments associated with aggressive life-prolonging measures. As of 2017, only an estimated 36.7% of the United States adult population had a form of advance directive documented (Yadav et al., 2017). The purpose of this evidence-based project was to determine if implementation of an advanced care planning (ACP) protocol would increase ACP discussions, AD completion, and result in a modification in stage of change or behavior. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) and Stetler Model of evidence-based practice were used as the framework to guide …

Precision Medicine And It's Ethical And Social Implications: Public Health And Gobal Persepctives, Evangel Sarwar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ever since President Obama's launch of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) in 2015, precision medicine (PM) has been anticipated as the new paradigm for healthcare with the capacity to “empower patients, researchers, and providers to work together toward the development of individualized care,” through research, technologies, and policies (President Obama, 2015). Precision Medicine (PM), in the form of genomics, offers unprecedented promise of providing new tools for improving health and reducing the burden of diseases, not just for the U.S. - but also globally. According to World Health Organization, genomics research and precision medicine will play a major part in …

Female Genital Mutilation In The United States: Estimating The Number Of Girls At Risk, Phyllis Chesler

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Female genital mutilation (FGM) destroys the capacity of women to experience sexual pleasure. It causes serious medical complications such as bleeding, painful urination, cysts, dangerous and recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, the growth of scar tissue that make marital intercourse a nightmare and that turns childbirth into an experience of danger and torture. Due to immigration, FGM now poses a potential health crisis in the West, both in Europe and in the United States. To estimate how many girls who live in the West are at risk, one can measure the prevalence of FGM in the non-Western countries where …

Escaping Death: Naloxone's Chemical Nature And Potential To Combat The Opioid Epidemic, Abigale Miller

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Naloxone is a life-saving drug with the ability to reverse an opioid overdose. As the opioid epidemic’s death toll rises, we can turn to Naloxone as a tool to combat the crisis. The epidemic, born of corruption, has a wide reach among the people of the United States, with especially firm grasps on middle-aged people, sufferers of chronic pain, white Americans and those living in the eastern portion of the country. Naloxone’s elegant design saves lives by effectively competing for a position on an opioid biding receptor in the brain to almost instantly end an overdose and restore normal breathing. …

Betrayed Partners And Men With Poisoned Souls: Interview With A Former Sex Buyer In Germany, Ingeborg Kraus

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Refinement On The Way Towards Replacement: Are We Doing What We Can?, Kathrin Herrmann

Humane Science Movement Collection

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The 3rs: From Whitewashing To Rights, Charlotte E. Blattner

Humane Science Movement Collection

Few other issues have prompted as many legislators to adopt legal instruction on the “proper” use of non-human animals (hereinafter referred to as animals) in medical and scientific research. Today, the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, and refinement of animals in scientific procedures) are globally accepted by a vast majority of states (Blattner, 2014); and prominent international organizations, such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (Terrestrial Animal Health Code, 2018, Article 7(8)(3)) and the Council of Europe (Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals Used for Experimental and Other Scientific Purposes, 1986, Articles 6(2), 7 and 8). Widespread acceptance of the …

When Is An Alternative Not An Alternative? Supporting Progress For Absolute Replacement Of Animals In Science, Craig Redmond

Humane Science Movement Collection

This chapter addresses some of the areas in which animals are still used within “alternatives”-based research and calls on animal welfare and in vitro organizations to lead the debate and encourage absolute replacement of animal use in research. Without this, progress to end animal research will always remain limited, despite the paradigm shift seen in recent decades.

Research And Testing Without Animals: Where Are We Now And Where Are We Heading?, Thomas Hartung

Humane Science Movement Collection

Experiments involving non-human animals (hereinafter referred to as animals) were the predominant technology in the life sciences from the 1920s to the 1970s. Increasingly, animal-based procedures have been complemented and superseded by other approaches; yet, they still have an enormous reputation as an apparent definitive answer to many scientific and, especially, regulatory questions. They have been questioned first for ethical reasons: Can we justify making animals suffer for scientific inquiry? Simply said, people have different views on this question, but the general public views animal experimentation more and more critically. The animal research community has sought a compromise between those …

Establishing Trust In Hiv/Hcv Research Among People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid): Insights From Empirical Research, Roberto Abadie, Shira Goldenberg, Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Celia B. Fisher

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background — The establishment of trust between researchers and participants is critical to advance HIV and HCV prevention particularly among people who inject drugs (PWID) and other marginalized populations, yet empirical research on how to establish and maintain trust in the course of community health research is lacking. This paper documents ideas about trust between research participants and researchers amongst a sub-sample of PWID who were enrolled in a large, multi-year community health study of social networks and HIV/HCV risk that was recently conducted in rural Puerto Rico.

Methods — Qualitative research was nested within a multi-year Social Network and …

Cold Genocide: Falun Gong In China, Maria Cheung, Torsten Trey, David Matas, Richard An

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The article explores patterns of a cold genocide in the eradication campaign against Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has been targeted for eradication by the Chinese regime since 1999. In comparison to the documented cases of genocide, the genocide of Falun Gong stands out as anomalous because it is virtually ignored. The article seeks to elucidate the multi-faceted nature of this concealed genocide from an interdisciplinary perspective encompassing social work, medicine and law, In particular, the article demonstrates that the eradication campaign against Falun Gong is distinguishable as a cold genocide as it is: (1) multi-dimensional …

The Core Relation Between Hospitality (Philoxenia), Dignity And Vulnerability In Orthodox Christian Bioethics: A Contribution To Global Bioethics, Rabee Toumi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In a pluralistic world, reaching consensus in matters of bioethics has proved to be difficult, especially with the political polarization that nurtures inimical differences. This dissertation argues that a middle ground can be identified between the plurality of value systems in contemporary bioethics based on an anthropological approach. This middle ground that reflects commonalities of the human condition can be explored in relation to the foundational principles of Orthodox Christian anthropology. To identify this middle ground the analysis discusses the core relation between hospitality, dignity, and vulnerability as a contribution to global bioethics.

In general, based on Orthodox Christian theology …

Pornography As A Public Health Issue: Promoting Violence And Exploitation Of Children, Youth, And Adults, Elisabeth Taylor

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

The pornography industry is expanding exponentially as a result of ongoing technological advances. The ability to stream videos over the internet and the ubiquity of the smart phone have meant that pornography producers are able to use algorithms to target potential consumers, to cultivate new sexual tastes and to deliver content to a more diverse audience over mobile devices. The advent of virtual reality pornography with interactive sex toys and sex robots imbued with artificial intelligence promises to unleash a further step-change in the extent to which pornography influences ‘real-world’ sexual culture. The critical analysis of pornography undertaken over decades …

Where Trying To Conceive Becomes A Community Effort: A Digital Ethnography Of Online Infertility Forums, Megan Burns

Sociology Honors Papers

Online forums for women using in vitro fertilization (IVF), or similar assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), provide a useful setting to further evaluate and understand women’s expectations of motherhood, the relationship infertile women have with physicians and biomedicine, and their interactions on the forums. Some critics of ARTs consider them a tool of oppression in a pronatalist state. The pressure and desire to become a biological mother leads the women with access to these technologies to use them regardless. Through digital ethnographic research on four online ART forums, this research examines the intersection of altruism and self-interest in the ways forum-users …

Allopathic Medicine’S Influence On Indigenous Peoples In The Kumaon Region Of India, Eliana M. Blum

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper focuses on the use of western medicine in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, India. The goal of this research is to understand which healing practices are preferable in rural villages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 53 participants, including two spiritual healers, two doctors, and one pharmacist. Results indicate that allopathic medicine, otherwise known as modern medicine or western medicine, has become the go-to remedy for even the most remote people in India. Nearly all participants use allopathic medicine, but less than half of the participants experiment with other forms of healing, such as Ayurveda, homeopathy, meditation, and yoga. …

Biosocial Criminology Versus The Constitution, Karen E. Balter

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The continually emerging field of biosocial criminology provides a basis for productively merging biology with sociological reasonings for criminal behavior. Mainstream research in criminology focuses on environmental factors as the sole reason individuals exhibit antisocial behavior patterns and may ultimately commit crimes. Criminological research has travelled in this direction for decades. The current climate within this community subscribes heavily to the notion that biology has very little to do with why people behave the way they do, and if it did, government control would be the norm. The nature of biocriminology opens a door through which constitutional issues may enter. …

A New Measure For End Of Life Planning, Preparation, And Preferences In Huntington Disease: Hdqlife End Of Life Planning, Noelle E Carlozzi, E A Hahn, S A Frank, J S Perlmutter, N D Downing, M K Mccormack, S Barton, M A Nance, S G Schilling, Hdqlife Site Investigators And Coordinators

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

BACKGROUND: Huntington disease is a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disease. Because the end result of Huntington disease is death due to Huntington disease-related causes, there is a need for better understanding and caring for individuals at their end of life.

AIM: The purpose of this study was to develop a new measure to evaluate end of life planning.

DESIGN: We conducted qualitative focus groups, solicited expert input, and completed a literature review to develop a 16-item measure to evaluate important aspects of end of life planning for Huntington disease. Item response theory and differential item functioning analyses were utilized to examine …

Book Review: Surrogacy: A Human Rights Violation By Renate Klein, Kate Rose

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Predictors Of Medical Students’ Attitudes Towards Abortion And Their Changes Overtime, Rebecca Elizabeth Morales

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

As new legislation is regularly being introduced to minimize Roe v. Wade’s protection of women’s right to choose in a medical setting, it is imperative to study what predictors may have an impact on abortion attitudes within the demographic of medical students, as well as how these predictors impact one’s willingness to provide the service in the future. The current study then, uses data collected in 2000 and 2015 from a medical school located in Virginia, and in collaboration with a research university in the state to examine what factors are associated with a willingness to provide an abortion, as …

Stasi Brainwashing In The Gdr 1957 - 1990, Jacob H. Solbrig, Jacob Hagen Solbrig

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the methods used by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), more commonly known as the Stasi, or East German secret police, for extraction of information from citizens of the German Democratic Republic for the purpose of espionage and covert operations inside East Germany, as it pertains to the deliberate brainwashing of East German citizens. As one of the most efficient intelligence agencies to ever exist, the Stasi’s main purpose was to monitor the population, gather intelligence, and collect or turn informants. They used brainwashing techniques to control the people of the GDR, keeping the populace paralyzed with fear …

“First, Do No Harm”: Old And New Paradigms In Prehospital Resuscitation In The Aquatic Domain, John H. Pearn, Richard Charles Franklin

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

The balance between benefit and risk is central to the work of all those involved in aquatic services. The Hippocratic exhortation of Primum non nocere, “First, do no harm,” has a history of over 2000 years. Superficially, all would support this dictum, but harm can result from inaction. The balance between no or little intervention on the one hand and proactive intervention with iatrogenic risk on the other is complex and enduring. Risk implies that one does not have all the information available to know the exact likelihood of an outcome, a common situation involving rescue, first aid, and …

Ethical Theories And Perspectives On End-Of-Life Decisions, Lauren Skelton

Dialogue & Nexus

This paper approaches several different ethical theories to see how they interact with the issue of withdrawing and withholding life-sustaining care. After the theories of Utilitarianism, Kantian and Prima Facie Deontology, Virtue Ethics, and Evolutionary Ethics are explored at length, Deontological theories are proven to be the best decision-making guide from the perspective of both patients and those in policy-making positions. When used together, Kantian and Prima Facie Deontology offer the overall best combination of ethical instruction and personal freedom.

The Ethical Considerations Of Physician-Assisted Suicide, Madeline Jordan

Dialogue & Nexus

With respect to physician-assisted suicide, several approaches to adjudicate an ethical position can be processed from the theories of utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and virtue ethics. This paper will explore these three positions with respect to physician-assisted suicide and the pros and cons of each. In conclusion, based on my research and Christian beliefs, I will define why I reside with virtue ethics and why it leads me to a position that is against physician-assisted suicide at this particular point in my life.

Christian And Islamic Perspectives On The Ethical Dilemma Of In Vitro Fertilization (Ivf), Stephanie Sariles

Dialogue & Nexus

After defining IVF procedures and the associated biomedical ethics with each, I will compare and contrast Christian and Islamic perspectives on IVF. Christianity in general does not accept IVF, because it is an unnatural method of reproduction that can affect Christian traditions such as parenthood and marriage. Despite this view, Protestants, in particular, have opened up to IVF as a method for treating infertility. Islam fully accepts IVF provided the married couple follows Islamic law. Sunni Muslims do not accept gamete donation, but Shi’ite Muslims are more flexible with gamete donation and surrogacy.