The struggle over legal abortion access in the United States is a religious controversy, not a scientific debate. Religious activists who believe that meaningful individual life (i.e., “personhood”) begins at a specific “moment-of-conception” are attempting to pass laws that force this view upon all pregnant persons, irrespective of their medical circumstances, individual preferences, or personal religious beliefs. This paper argues that such actions promote a constitutionally prohibited “establishment of religion.” Abortion policy in a secular state must be based upon scientifically (...) accurate biology, not unprovable theological presuppositions. The scientific facts regarding human pregnancy do not support the position that personhood begins with fertilization—at which point a pregnancy does not yet even exist. Abortion policy should regard the embryo/fetus as part of the pregnant individual’s body until delivery. We argue that individual “personhood” only begins when the _latent_ potentialities of the fetal nervous system are _actualized_ in the newborn after delivery. The paper argues that instantiating non-scientific beliefs concerning embryonic/fetal “personhood” into the law as the basis for abortion policy establishes a state-sponsored religion. The protection of religious liberty requires that abortion be decriminalized. Abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure and regulated similarly. To protect both religious freedom and sound medical practice, individual legal personhood should be recognized as beginning only at birth. (shrink)

Working within weak subsystems of second-order arithmetic Z2 we consider two versions of the Baire Category theorem which are not equivalent over the base system RCA0. We show that one version (B.C.T.I) is provable in RCA0 while the second version (B.C.T.II) requires a stronger system. We introduce two new subsystems of Z2, which we call RCA+ 0 and WKL+ 0, and show that RCA+ 0 suffices to prove B.C.T.II. Some model theory of WKL+ 0 and its importance in view of (...) Hilbert's program is discussed, as well as applications of our results to functional analysis. (shrink)

Continuing the investigations of X. Yu and others, we study the role of set existence axioms in classical Lebesgue measure theory. We show that pairwise disjoint countable additivity for open sets of reals is provable in RCA0. We show that several well-known measure-theoretic propositions including the Vitali Covering Theorem are equivalent to WWKL over RCA0.

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

Substantial medical evidence shows that about half of ovarian cancers originate in the fallopian tube. Some medical organizations and clinical articles have suggested opportunistic salpingectomy to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in patients at average risk of developing it. This entails removing the fallopian tubes at the same time as another procedure that would occur anyway. The authors argue that the principles of totality and double effect can justify such salpingectomies, even though there is a low incidence of ovarian (...) cancer. Since screening tools for ovarian cancer are ineffective and treatment options are poor, the good effect of reducing the risk of death from this type of ovarian cancer can be proportionate to the bad effects of the minor increase in surgical risk over the other procedure, the unintended side effect of infertility, and the removal of normally functioning tissue. The authors conclude that it is within the purview of a patient and physician to determine whether the benefits are proportionate to the risks in a particular case. (shrink)

This article addresses a common yet rarely discussed aspect of hospital care—a pro-active approach to ethical dilemmas. Potential ethical conflicts often present warning signs to clinicians, analogous to the warning lights on a car’s dashboard. Using a recent case study, a commonly encountered clinical decision—a conflict about whether to terminally extubate a critically ill patient versus whether to offer a tracheostomy— we describe a pro-active approach to ethical conflicts and outline three learning objectives: (1) the need for a robust understanding (...) of the term “futility,” (2) the need for an appreciation of the various and often conflicting interpretations of “improved/improving,” and (3) the need to understand the challenges of surrogate decision making. (shrink)