The governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sergio Cabral, has proposed legalizing abortion as means for reducing the number of criminals in the country.
Cabral caused a firestorm when he told the G1 news website, “It is an issue that unfortunately is not discussed because of a lack of courage. The issue of the termination of pregnancies [...]

(Excerpt) The burning pain in Ellen’s arm was due to the rapid application of propofol, a paper-white liquid medication, which the perceptive Dr. Frank had plugged into Ellen’s IV the second he heard the c-word (cancer). When he saw her reaction, he pushed. The drug, sometimes called “milk of amnesia,” stings some patients sharply in the [...]

THE government has no plans to lower the legal limit on abortion because there is no medical evidence to support a change, a senior UK health minister said yesterday. Dawn Primarolo told MPs that despite scientific advances, a foetus’s chances of survival had not improved and the upper limit of 24 weeks should not be [...]

Presidential candidates Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) will be webcast live October 25, 2007, discussing health reform and the uninsured- the leading domestic issue for the 2008 campaign and the focus of this year’s Bioethics International Benefit.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 8:30 a.m. ET
Sen. Joseph Biden, Thursday, [...]

Assembling nanomaterials with the help of innocuous viruses could lead to threadlike batteries and photovoltaics that can be woven into clothing 

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued a warning that egg freezing is an experimental procedure with poor success rates. ASRM estimates that the “overall live birth rate from frozen eggs is as low as 2% per egg.” 

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority voted 6-1 on Thursday to approve a controversial measure that will allow pregnant illegal immigrants to receive prenatal care.
However. Rep. Randy Terrill, R- Moore, said he intends to challenge the board’s action at a regular meeting in Ada when the Legislature returns to session. Terrill, a critic of illegal [...]

Higher death rates for black babies and the greater likelihood that men will be referred for heart procedures are two of the many disparities in health care.
Latinos are three times as likely as non-Latino whites to be uninsured. And there’s often a digital divide between elderly people with fading eyesight or hearing who don’t know [...]

Disability rights campaigners yesterday criticised a mother’s request for her teenage daughter, who has severe cerebral palsy to have a hysterectomy.Alison Thorpe says the operation is in the best interests of her daughter, Katie, to spare her the monthly discomfort of menstruating. But the medical consent application being prepared on behalf of the 15-year-old from [...]

Medical ethicist Daniel Sokol considers the controversy stirred up by a mother’s request for doctors to give her severely disabled daughter a hysterectomy to stop her from starting menstruation.
The ancient Greeks called the uterus “an animal within an animal”. They believed it could roam around a young woman’s body, sometimes all the way up [...]