Category: News

Vancouver doctor cleared of wrongdoing in probe into assisted death at Orthodox Jewish nursing home

The Globe and Mail

Kelly Grant

British Columbia’s physician regulator has cleared a doctor of any wrongdoing for sneaking into an Orthodox Jewish nursing home that forbids assisted death and ending the life of a resident who wanted to die in his own bed.

In a letter dated July 5, 2019, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia (CPSBC) dismissed an official complaint against Ellen Wiebe, saying the Vancouver doctor did not break any of the regulator’s rules when she helped Barry Hyman, 83, die inside the Louis Brier Home and Hospital. . . [Full text]

Japanese scientist to use human-animal hybrids to create organs

BioEdge

Michael Cook

A Japanese stem cell scientist has obtained permission to create human-animal chimeras and transplant them into surrogate animals. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, a researcher at the University of Tokyo and at Stanford University, plans to insert induced pluripotent human cells into mouse embryos. His ultimate aim is to grow human organs in animals. . . [Full text]

Spanish and US scientists go to China to create human-monkey chimeras

BioEdge

Michael Cook

In a stunning example of evading ethical controversy by exporting it, Spanish and American researchers have created monkey-human chimeras in China. The hybrid embryos will be destroyed after they develop a central nervous system and will not be brought to term. . . [Full text]

The women seeking abortions turned away by doctors in Chile

BBC News

Grace Livingstone

When Adriana Ávila Barraza was 12 weeks pregnant, she received some upsetting news.

Her foetus’s head was malformed, and the prognosis was not good, her doctor told her. The diagnosis was confirmed by an x-ray when she was 16 weeks pregnant – part of the skull was missing, so the brain could not develop. The foetus would not survive. . . [Full text]

Abortion debate: Woman told she’s ‘immoral and risking hellfire’

New Zealand Herald

Emma Russell

A woman left her general practice in tears after a doctor told her she was “immoral and risking hellfire” for seeking an abortion. Discreetly, the female receptionist rushed after the woman and slipped her a card for a doctor who could help her.

Another woman visited three different doctors for an abortion – and each time was shown the door. . . [Full text]