The ethics call on this story is easy, though it is tempting to say otherwise.
Anthony S. Darwin was on the lam for six years in Wisconsin, eluding law enforcement authorities who were seeking to arrest him on pending charges of aggravated battery, bail jumping, battery, robbery with use of force, substantial battery and identity theft. Then he suddenly surrendered… because he realized he needed treatment for a life-threatening cancer. Continue reading
Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of pariah John Edwards, lost her long battle with cancer last week. The columns and broadcast tributes extolling her courage and character have been ubiquitous. She handled her illness with dignity, and the public revelation of her husband’s betrayal as well as could be expected. As is often the case when a public figure dies, however, the accolades have been excessive: calling Elizabeth Edwards a hero goes too far. When her opportunity for true heroism arrived, she not only rejected it, but chose a course of narrow self-interest that put the nation at risk. We can attribute this to ambition, human frailty, a mother’s warped perspective, or a bad decision under stress, but whatever the cause, her actions were the antithesis of heroism. Continue reading
Dr. James D. Watson, Nobel Prize winner, will always have a place among the highest echelons of scientific achievement, no matter what thoughtless and dangerous things he says. Still, the co-discoverer of the double helix is slowly tarnishing his reputation by a series of gaffes. A few years ago, he opined that there was no way to avoid the conclusion that African-Americans just weren’t as intelligent, on average, as whites: the predictable uproar sent him into retirement. Now, as Watson reaps the well-deserved bounty of career honors in his eighties, he is endorsing the retreat from the standards of medical research ethics originally inspired by the diabolical human experimentation performed on helpless adults and children by nightmarish Nazi researcher, Dr. Josef Mengele. Mengele believed that human beings could be reasonably sacrificed if the benefits to society and humanity generally were great enough, in his estimation, of course. Apparently, so does Watson. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 