Ethical Lapses in Pediatrics Can Lead to Unjustified Custody Loss: The “Take Care of Maya” Case Is a Good Time for Reflection on Laws and Practices
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Ethical Lapses in Pediatrics Can Lead to Unjustified Custody Loss: The “Take Care of Maya” Case Is a Good Time for Reflection on Laws and Practices

ByAnne Zimmerman

Adapted and including significant excerpts from Zimmerman, A. “Our System for Reporting Child Abuse is Unethical” Hastings Center Forum, September 29, 2023. “Take Care of Maya” documents the tragic circumstances of powerful child abuse pediatrician Sally Smith and social worker Cathi Bedy, who, with doctors and the infrastructure of the Department of Children and Families…

Realistic concerns about AI: Are misplaced existential worries detracting from the important issues?
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Realistic concerns about AI: Are misplaced existential worries detracting from the important issues?

ByAnne Zimmerman

Some articles in mainstream media and academics could be paraphrased as statements that begin “I am concerned about AI proliferation because. . .” Answers can be broadly grouped into two distinct categories: existential threats and grounded, proven and anticipated harms. Math is not going to “take over the world”. While that is an odd statement,…

Rescues on the Sea: Moral duties to the Titan and an old fishing boat

Rescues on the Sea: Moral duties to the Titan and an old fishing boat

ByAnne Zimmerman

The “rule of rescue” describes the imperative people feel to rescue those in imminent danger. That kneejerk reaction is distinct from the ethical imperative that is described as a duty to rescue. The firm territory of the moral duty to rescue involves rescue that puts the rescuer at little inconvenience or cost and does not…

The paperwork standard of care: medical malpractice liability for violating advance directives
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The paperwork standard of care: medical malpractice liability for violating advance directives

ByAnne Zimmerman

Hospital and physician liability for saving the life of someone who wished not to be saved is an area of evolving law. While years ago, such cases were routinely dismissed, recent caselaw recognizes the cause of action under medical malpractice. Increasing public awareness of the importance of advance directives and movements like medical aid in…

Bioethics as Broad and Deep
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Bioethics as Broad and Deep

ByAnne Zimmerman

I envision a broad bioethics, one that covers the relationships and interactions between science and society. Bioethics ranges from dilemmas arising in the relationship between doctors and people seeking care (often clinical ethics) to largescale societal moral dilemmas. The individual and societal issues are intertwined: each has implications for the other. Does a policy, personal…

Hunger and The Global Food Crisis
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Hunger and The Global Food Crisis

ByAnne Zimmerman

Organizations and scholars frame the current food crisis as a global phenomenon due to a confluence of events and circumstances like droughts, the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. As Samantha Power noted this week, “a decade of progress” has been “obliterated”. The number of people with unmet food needs is steeply increasing after a…

“Somewhere in the constitution”: Reproductive Freedom
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“Somewhere in the constitution”: Reproductive Freedom

ByAnne Zimmerman

Reactions to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health are wide ranging, and many seem to reflect emotion and use charged language. I do not mean to downplay the tossing out of an established constitutional right, but a cooling off period may allow for more reasoned discussion. While in the past courts disagreed about where in the…

Anti-Resilience: What Happened to Normal?
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Anti-Resilience: What Happened to Normal?

ByAnne Zimmerman

Diagnosis is a tricky word. Doctors diagnose some scientific truths: for example, a finding of a tumor and the accompanying pathology report describing cellular activity and genetic information, etc. Diagnosis is also the term used for many things for which science does not provide a distinct test – diagnosis depends in those cases on a…

A Supply Chain of Trust
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A Supply Chain of Trust

ByAnne Zimmerman

One strategy for improving public trust in science, the COVID-19 vaccine and possibly future COVID-19 vaccines or vaccines for emerging virus should be improving trustworthiness at all levels. The way bioethics and public health approach public trust often leaves out the most crucial element: improving trustworthiness and maintaining trustworthy institutions. Doctors and other healthcare professionals…

Bound by the Rules: The Pitfalls of Resource Allocation Ethics
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Bound by the Rules: The Pitfalls of Resource Allocation Ethics

ByAnne Zimmerman

When ethics becomes too rules-based the thinking and making sense of complex situations can be obscured by techniques that declare some ethical decisions final and powered by precedent or guidelines. A stronger practicum that includes ethical tools designed to help people wrestle with complex dilemmas using rationality, logic, and compassion may lead to better ethical…