Things have been a bit quiet on the blog front over the last
few weeks, partly due to half term break, mostly due to my school getting the dreaded
call from OFSTED two days into the new term. I’m still recovering from the
stress…
Anyway, in this post I’ll be flagging up a couple of stories
that have been in the news over the last couple of weeks that should interest
students studying Ethics and Philosophy.
Last Monday, there was an interesting news story about
doctors using MRI scans to communicate
with patients in a persistent vegetative state. The degree to which
patients in PVS possess any type of awareness has been a matter of some controversy: one of the symptoms
of PVS is an apparent lack of cognitive function. However, during this research, doctors were able to communicate with some patients in PVS by asking them to imagine
certain situations (for example, playing tennis) while scanning their brain
activity and comparing the results of these scans with those of healthy volunteers.
In the most dramatic example one patient, Scott Routley, was able to tell his
carers that he is not in any pain.
In the past, patients in a PVS such as Terri Schiavo and Tony Bland have had the feeding
treatment that they depend upon to survive withdrawn at the request of their
families. The results of the experiment may change the way we think about and
care for patients with PVS, and perhaps even enable them to have a say in their
own treatment.
You can watch a Panorama episode about the research here.
Also in the news last week was the tragic death of Savita
Halappanavar, an Indian dentist who died at a hospital in Ireland after
being refused an abortion.
Ireland’s abortion laws are stricter than those of the UK, and while abortion
is allowed in cases where the mother’s life is in danger (it is illegal in
other circumstances) it seems that an abortion may have been refused because
Savita’s unborn child still had a detectable heartbeat.
In the news this week is the imminent result of the Church
of England’s vote on whether to allow women bishops.
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