I have recently been working on a bioethics textbook. Bioethics is a discipline largely driven by case studies – short narratives intended to make the ethical issues under discussion clear, real and urgent. Consequently, many bioethics textbooks include case studies. I want to do something different in this month’s column,Read More

Jennifer A. Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on the gene-editing tool now known as CRISPR/Cas9. This award has drawn the public’s attention to a technique that has been of interest (and concern) to bioethicists for several years — certainly sinceRead More

Last month, I wrote about the ethical issues generated by the euphemistic and imprecise term Medical Assistance In Dying (or MAID) and the way in which the change in the law which led to the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia had avid supporters (whom I have labelled “optimists”) andRead More

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized the prohibition on assisted suicide, a decision which led to the legalization of assisted suicide (when an individual ends her own life with the help of another, usually a physician) and voluntary active euthanasia (when someone gives permission to another person –Read More

When I was young, there was a saying that was often used to describe someone who wanted to do two incompatible things simultaneously: “She wants to have her cake and eat it too!” The moral of the saying was that we often have to make difficult choices: we can’t preserveRead More

I have long prided myself on my conscientious recycling and composting habits. Anything that is recyclable goes into my blue boxes, and anything that is compostable goes into my green bin. Consequently, while I often put out more than one blue box on garbage day, I usually have only aRead...

I am writing this column on Sunday, April 19, which, coincidentally, is also Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians. Last week, another Easter Sunday, did not feel festive, and nor does this one. My street, as I look out my window, is completely deserted. There are cars in the driveways, butRead More

I had a strange nightmare last night. It began in a perfectly ordinary way, with me pushing a shopping cart down the aisles of a grocery store and loading my cart with the kinds of items I usually buy: some cheese, some cherry tomatoes, some fish and so on. ThisRead More

Last fall, Canadians were treated to the unedifying spectacle of a federal election (or, as Frank magazine amusingly put it, “a running of the reptiles.”) I think it’s safe to say that, whatever our particular political beliefs, and our relief or disappointment with the election results, all of our politicalRead...

There’s a passage in Emily St. John Mandel’s wonderful (and surprisingly not too depressing) book, Station Eleven, about the world before, during, and after a pandemic which I want to quote at length because it captures better than anything else I know how I am feeling right now. It goesRead More