The director of Human Genetics Alert, Dr David King, was critical of the decision. "I really do think that this has gone a good deal too far because this condition, despite being, admittedly, perhaps somewhat disabling, doesn't shorten life in any way. The HFEA has ignored public opinion and has ignored its own rules which say that PGD should only be allowed for serious medical conditions." ~ BBC, May 8
Want to get plastinated? This is not an invitation to a boozy night out, but a novel way disposing of your mortal remains. Your body will be be preserved, dissected and displayed in globe-trotting exhibitions. For some it is an appealing option. According to an AP report, thousands of people have willed their bodies to the world's foremost plastinator, Dr Guther von Hagens, and his Body Worlds anatomy exhibit.
Although von Hagens originated the concept in 1977 -- body fluids are replaced by liquid plastic which hardens and allows the bodies to be displayed in their natural colour and without formaldehyde -- he now has competitors, mostly from China. They also tour the world with flayed mannequins posing as frozen sportsmen with vital organs in public view. A rival exhibit using Chinese corpses is touring Australia at the moment.
Surprisingly, some people want to seek a kind of immortality by joining the show. Since 1983, when von Hagens launched his donations program, 7,652 people have agreed to donate their bodies, of whom 461 have already died. "It's something that you want to do instead of being ashes or worm food, to be some kind of asset instead of being in the ground," says 49-year-old homemaker Susan Baxter.
The voyeuristic element in von Hagens's plastination exhibit has prompted much criticism. The current issue of the American Journal of Bioethics features a discussion of the trend. Bioethicist Lawrence Burns says "[its] educational aims are ambiguous, and some aspects of the exhibit violate human dignity. In particular, the signature cards attached to the whole-body plastinates that bear the title, the signature of Gunther von Hagens, and the date of creation mark the plastinates as artwork and von Hagens as the artist in a gesture that strips the personal dignity from the donors."
A health care ethicist at Georgetown University in the US, Carol Taylor, dismissed it as mere "commercial amusement". "My major objection stems from the belief that there's an innate dignity to humans that extends to our bodies," she told AP. "Anything that denigrates our bodies by commercialising them, I'm opposed to." However, another person who wants to become a plastinated stiff disagrees. "My body is just a vessel," says Stace Owens. "This is just what I have in this life." ~ International Herald Tribune, Apr 24
CAN 6-YEAR-OLD HAVE TRANSGENDER ISSUES?
Barbara Walters's program 20/20 on the American ABC network is not famed for its nuanced presentations of complex topics. So its lurid coverage of transgender six-year-olds gives an insight into the kind of bioethical advice that the public is receiving. What 20/20 found was that hundreds of American families with troubled children have discovered each other on the internet and are creating a movement for acceptance of children who feel that they are locked into a body with the wrong sex.
Jazz Jennings is one of the children featured on the show. Now six, he (although 20/20 insisted on calling Jazz "she") has felt that he was a girl since he began to talk. After consulting medical textbooks and doctors, his parents decided to let him live as a girl, with frilly dresses and pink and purple sheets. They even had a kind of "coming-out" ceremony, when he had a pool party for his fifth birthday and wore a girl's one-piece bathing suit.
Later on his parents will probably get him to have hormone therapy, take estrogen to grow breasts and possibly have sex reassignment surgery. This family policy leads to social complications, but so far there have been no big problems. His teachers know that Jazz is biologically male, although he dresses like a girl, but most of his little friends do not.
More children were interviewed in other segments of the program, all with the message that the most painful thing for a child with this psychological disorder was not letting them be who they want to be. Not accepting their feelings would undoubtedly lead to self-hatred, lack of self-esteem, and even self-harm.
"At no point, regardless of how happy the child looks, is the child truly comfortable in his or her body or with his or her expected social roles," 20/20's transgender adviser says. "The only recourse for these children is to dress as they identify and hope that no one remembers what is really under their clothes."
The treatment of this difficult issue is another example of how deeply confused notions of confused sexuality have taken root in US society. Nearly all the emailed comments were supportive and the journalists expressed no scepticism about the impossibility of changing a pre-school child's self-image. No opposing views from psychiatrists were aired. ~ 20/20, Apr 27
BioEdge in the media
"Death for sale is a step into the dark"
by Michael Cook
Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 2007
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A US$1.25 billion spending package has been unveiled to make Massachusetts a major centre for embryonic stem cell research. 
An editorial in the British Medical Journal has dismissed calls for the non-voluntary euthanasia of newborn babies. Professor Kate Costeloe, of the University of London, argues that the treatment options for severely disabled babies is improving in the UK. "The availability of active euthanasia as a therapeutic option would undermine this progress and be a step backwards," she writes. Euthanasia would only make sense for newborns if "the futility of continued treatment is certain". However, predictions that babies will end up severely disabled are not foolproof. "Clinicians... have to live with the probability that they have occasionally allowed a baby to die who would have thrived."
After a long and heated debate in the state parliament, Victoria has become