December 5, 2019

What If Deaf Parents Were to Use Gene Editing to Produce a Deaf Child?

A Russian scientist wants to use CRISPR gene editing on embryos to prevent deafness; what if deaf parents were to use CRISPR on embryos to produce a deaf child? This was among the questions discussed at the lively inaugural event in The Hastings Center’s series exploring how people with disabilities are using--or resisting--technologies to promote their own flourishing. “Belonging: On Disability, Technology, and Community” took place in New York City on December 3 before an audience of nearly 200 people in person and more on livestream. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the series is being organized by Erik Parens, a senior research scholar at The Hastings Center, with Joel Michael Reynolds, the Rice Family Fellow in Bioethics and the Humanities at The Hastings Center, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a professor at Emory University and a Hastings Center Fellow. Five more public events will take place in 2020 and 2021. Learn more and watch the video.

In the Media: Family Doctors Are Turning to "Blue Collar Concierge Medicine"; Are Patients Helped or Harmed?

About 4 percent of family doctors, frustrated by the too-short visits and piles of paperwork demanded by insurance companies, are dropping out of insurance plans in favor of an arrangement in which they charge patients a flat monthly fee of about $75 for office visits, phone calls, emails, and certain texts and procedures. This arrangement is called direct primary care, or “blue collar concierge medicine,” since the fee is far lower than that charged by concierge care. But is it good for patients? In an interview with AP, Hastings Center research scholar Michael Gusmano recommended that patients find out exactly which services are covered, and not covered, before signing up. Read more.

Is Medical Aid in Dying a Human Right?

That question is “at the heart of the disagreement” over legalization of medical aid in dying, writes Alan B. Astrow, an oncologist, in a new post in Hastings Bioethics Forum. Astrow describes a discussion he had recently with the chair of the New York State Assembly Health Committee, who is sponsoring a bill to legalize medical aid in dying in New York State and who believes the practice is a human right. Astrow disagrees. Read the essay. Bioethics Forum publishes commentaries from a range of perspectives on timely issues in bioethics. Do you receive Bioethics Forum updates in your inbox? If not, sign up here.

The Troubled Dream of Life

Next week, The Hastings Center asks what’s next for an aging America at a December 11^th conference titled "The Next Generation of Palliative Care: Integrating Palliative and Social Ethics of Care." Read more

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