Corruption: Is it a Moral Issue or a Legal Issue?

This is a summary review of the various legal, moral and policy issues that have contributed to changes in the courts' enactment of legislation on wrongful-birth and wrongful-conception suits in the United States. Both cases represent the Supreme Court's recognition of personal injury claims by parents who have received inadequate medical care that has led to the birth of an imparied or unplanned child. In wrongful-birth cases, the parents assert that if they had received proper genetic counseling or testing, the child's birth could have been avoided. Parents involved in litigation of this type argue that the doctor's negligence prevented them from making such decisions, and that they should be compensated for the financial hardships and emotional suffering they experience as a result of his mistake. In such claims, the physician is charged with malpractice, an aspect of the law of torts which gives the injured party the right to seek financial compensation for that injury. Generally, state courts have allowed parents to recover the costs of medical care and of training and treatment for the handicapped child. Similarly, state courts now routinely recognize the wrongful-conception claims of parents who seek damages from a doctor or pharmacist after the birth of a healthy but unplanned child, born as a result of a failed sterilization or abortion. The recognition of wrongful-birth claims is closely linked to the legalization of abortion and the refinement of diagnostic tests, e.g., amniocentesis, that can detect many genetic diseases before birth. Such legislation is due to changes i opinion since 1967 and was strongly reinforced by the Supreme Court's concurrent decisions that it is a couples' constitutional right to decide whether or not to have a child and whether or not to use contraceptives to prevent conception. The major controversy today in this type of claims is over the amount of damages the parents may recover. Some states have passed legislation barring such claims due to the influence of right-to-life groups. They contend that such barring legislation is necessary to protect doctors who are morally opposed to abortion from having to provide information that might lead to such a practice. Pro-life proponents also argue that the recognition of such claims compels doctors to seek out and abort imperfect fetuses to avoid possible financial liability, and that human life no matter how severely handicapped, or unwanted, should be valued and protected.

The commentaries on newly instituted jury trials in Russia that Dostoevsky provided in his Diary of a Writer during the 1870s has attracted scholarly attention mainly for the legal and moral issues he addresses in them. His commentary on two jury trials in particular–those of Kroneberg and Kornilova (both of which involve violence toward children)–has attracted most of this scholarly attention. The present article examines Dostoevsky's commentary on a different trial, that of Nastasia Kairova, an actress who attacked the estranged wife of her lover with a razor in an outburst of jealous passion. Rather than examine Dostoevsky's commentary on the Kairova case as an example of his views on moral, legal, criminal, and/or judicial issues, however, I will be exploring it against the background of the author's views on female sexuality. More specifically, I will be focusing upon how Dostoevsky's conceptualization of carnal desire as a violent and destructive passion shapes his understanding not only of sex and love, but also of justice and mercy. It thus influences in a very fundamental way his view of the role that love–maternal and conjugal as opposed to romantic and sexual–should play in helping to establish the moral structure of a life, a family, and a society. Dostoevsky believed that Kairova's crime of passion was triggered by the unbridling of her carnal lusts, by the unleashing of a dangerous and destructive appetite for power, aggression, and domination that he linked closely with sexual desire. As we will see, Kairova's unruly carnal lusts, in Dostoevsky's opinion, not only led to her violent crime of passion; they also stood in the way of her moral regeneration and spiritual redemption.

Gestational Surrogacy: Consistent Laws are Necessary to Provide Effective Treatment

In recent years, there are many news reports about “the predicament of helping the falling elderly”. Many scholars treat this predicament as a social and moral issue. Few scholars explore it from the holistic perspective. This thesis discusses the influencing factors of the predicament, including the positive and negative aspects of the news reports, individual sense of security and reward-punishment mechanism. Based on two priming experiments, this paper tests the following hypotheses: (1) the positive news report enhances people’s willingness to help the old; (2) the higher the level of the subject’ sense of security, the greater his willingness to raise the old up; (3) the reward-punishment mechanism also enhances people’s willingness to give a hand. These conclusions show that this predicament is not simply a moral or legal issue, but an outcome of the transaction among the parties involved, macro systems and micro contexts. In addition, this study also found that there are significant differences in people’s willingness to help the old between acquaintance society and strangers society. And, social justice has a positive impact on people’s tendency to help. Therefore, the news media should bear the social responsibility that guides positive public opinion when pursuing objective news report. At the same time, the state and society should design the appropriate reward-punishment mechanism to resolve the predicament. All of these should be based on methodological relationalism.

Some women may not be able to carry their own children even when capable of conceiving biological offspring. In-vitro fertilization and embryo-transfer (IVF-ET) through surrogacy can now make this possible for these women. Surrogacy however, is still considered unacceptable in the Philippines due to moral and legal issues. This article will explore the need and acceptability of surrogacy in this age of IVF-ET in a country where the prevailing social norms and religious values still disapprove of third-party assisted reproductive technology (ART). Medical indications that would benefit from gestational surrogacy were enumerated and briefly discussed. The differentiation between traditional and gestation surrogacy, as well as commercial and altruistic surrogacy were defined. IVF with gestational surrogacy is a feasible solution to a number of medical difficulties in the carrying of a gestation. Strictly regulating the practice and restricting its use only to cases with legitimate medical indications will prevent its misuse and exploitation. Moral issues, admittedly will still remain an issue particularly for commercial surrogacy. However, limiting these only to altruistic and gestational surrogacy in some cases may be an acceptable compromise.

Researchers are looking into fully autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) systems more and more for real-time responses to cybersecurity threats, especially in high-stakes defense settings. These systems promise to be faster and bigger than anything else when it comes to stopping cyber-attacks, but they also bring up important moral and legal issues about who is responsible, how open they are, and how they are run. This paper goes into great detail about the moral issues and accountability systems that are important for using fully autonomous AI in U.S. defense cybersecurity. We look at the most up-to-date theoretical frameworks, such as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) ethical AI principles and federal guidelines. Then, we do a legal-ethical analysis to find holes in the laws and policies that are already in place. We look at real-world problems by looking at case studies of autonomous cyber defense systems, such as DARPA's "Mayhem" system in the Department of Defense and industry solutions like Darktrace and CrowdStrike in defense settings. Some of the main ethical problems that have been found are the possibility of AI making decisions that are biased or unclear, the risk of invading people's privacy, and the lack of clarity about who is responsible for actions taken by AI. In response, we suggest a structured accountability framework that makes it clear what AI developers, integrators, and deployers are responsible for. This framework would be supported by oversight tools like human-in-the-loop controls, audit trails, and following new AI risk management standards. The results show that strong accountability frameworks and proactive ethical guidelines are necessary to safely take advantage of the benefits of autonomous AI cyber defense in the U.S. while still following the law and keeping the public's trust.

Interface of Law and Psychiatric Problems in the Elderly.

Ethical challenges in reproductive medicine: posthumous reproduction

Emergency medical care effectively embarks on new frontiers to augment the levels of diagnostic accuracy, complexity of treatment options, and rapidity of interventions in the critical period. This will compose an approach that the machine can cater to extensive volumes of data very fast, providing its recommendations almost instantaneously and based on the best research evidence, thus improving patient outcome characteristics during on-call situations. In this respect, integrating AI within this domain raises moral, legal, and social issues; all of which will have to be addressed to ensure that the AI is both safe and efficient. Some of the advantages that may result from the provision of AI included within emergency care are: assisting healthcare workers in fast and accurate decision making, resource allocation and optimization and provision of personalized treatment to every patient. When AI systems make decisions without adequate patient input, it may lead to loss in the process of doctor-patient interaction with increased reliance on technology. The privacy and confidential information emerge to a certain extent in connection to the secure management of sensitive patient information by AI systems. Some of the key issue is that the legal complications in emergencies are precarious in nature because there may not always be time to obtain informed consent, which brings into question the respect for patient autonomy and accountability. It brings out a holistic approach in handling such issues and enables the easy setting of liability frameworks that are responsible and well-balanced.

Adultery is a complex social phenomenon that raises various moral, social, and legal issues in Indonesia. The existence of positive legal regulations and sanctions within Islamic law shows different approaches in addressing this problem; however, their effectiveness still requires comprehensive analysis. This study aims to compare the concepts, sanctions, and enforcement mechanisms regarding adultery according to Islamic law and positive law in Indonesia. The method used is normative research with literature analysis of laws and regulations, fiqh texts, and legal literature from both national and Islamic perspectives. The results indicate that the application of sanctions under Islamic law, such as stoning and flogging, has a more effective preventive and curative impact in combating adultery compared to lighter criminal sanctions under positive law, which is based on delik aduan (complaint-based offenses). Enforcement of Islamic law is also more effective and efficient because it is grounded in a strict system of evidence that does not rely on third-party advocacy, unlike the subjective and limited nature of positive law systems. The contribution of this research is to provide guidance for developing a more just and humane criminal law policy, as well as integrating sharia values into Indonesia’s legal reforms.

Preface.- Acknowledgements.- Notes on Contributors.- Chapter 1: Introduction.- Part I: Introduction to Patient and Family-Centred Care.- Chapter 2: Paediatric Patient-Centred Care: Evidence and Evolution David B. Nicholas, Krista Keiltyand Karima Karmali.- Chapter 3: A Canadian Perspective on a Child's Consent to Research Within a Context of Family-Centred Care: From Incompatibility to Synergy Linda Sheahan, Michael Da Silva, Christine Czoli and Randi Zlotnik Shaul.- Chapter 4: Resource Allocation in Paediatric Patient and Family-Centred Care Jennifer L. Gibson.- Part II: Legal, Ethical and Cultural Considerations.- Chapter 5: Culture, Religion and Family-Centred Care: Rani H. Srivastava.- Chapter 6: Ethical and Legal Issues in Patient and Family-Centred Care: Canadian First Nations, Metis and Inuit People Julija Kelecevic.- Chapter 7: Accounting for the Family in Law: An Impartial but not Impersonal Point of View Lee A. Chapman.- Chapter 8: Legal Considerations in Paediatric Patient and Family-Centred Healthcare Joan M. Gilmour.- Part III: Implementation and Lived Experience.- Chapter 9: Paediatric Patient-Centred Care at SickKids: Advancing Child & Family-Centred Care Krista Keilty, David B. Nicholas, Karen Sappleton and Karima Karmali.- Chapter 10: The Effect of Patient and Family-Centred Care (PFCC) Delivery Model on Paediatrics at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre Bonnie Nicholas.- Chapter 11: Creating Partnerships for Life: One Family's Story of Paediatric Patient and Family-Centred Paediatric Care Janis Purdy.- Chapter 12: Supporting the Developing Autonomy of Youth Patients: Reflections on the Role of Healthcare Providers Christy Simpson.- Part IV: In Context.- Chapter 13: Participation in Paediatric Research Studies Nancy Walton.- Chapter 14: Clinical Genetics Practice: Integrating Paediatric Patient and Family-Centred Care Cheryl Shuman and Riyana Babul-Hirji.- Chapter 15: End-of-Life Decision-Making in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Serving the Best Interests of the Newborn Within a Patient and Family-Centred Care Framework Jonathan Hellman.- Chapter 16: Legal and Ethical Issues in Child-and Family-Centred Care:Transplantation Rebecca A. Greenberg, Michael Campbell and Linda Wright.- Chapter 17: Patient and Family-Centred Care: Critical Partnerships When Treating Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa Lori d'Agincourt-Canning, Lucinda Kunkel and Karen Dixon.- Chapter 18: Lost in Transition: Legal and Ethical Approaches When Applying Patient- and Family-Centred Care to Adolescents With Disabilities Maria L.Z. McDonald and Lucie Wade.- Chapter 19: Ethical Conflicts That may Arise When Caring for Dying Children Christine Newman, Adam Rapoport and Gurjit Sangha.

In this issue of JIE, readers will be immersed in an emerging and fascinating research field, a sphere that fits squarely in the larger domains of information and research ethics. Internet Research Ethics (IRE) has been growing steadily since the late 1990s, with many disciplinary examinations of what it means to conduct research-ethically-in online or Internet-based environments. Seminar guidelines, through such influential bodies as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1999), Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Working Group (2002), and the American Psychological Association's Working Group (2004) (see Kraut, et al.) have been developed; three edited collections appeared in the last few years (Buchanan, 2004a; Johns, Chen, & Hall, 2003; Thorseth, 2003), and a plethora of interdisciplinary and international conversations have occurred in the face of IRE.The issues involved are indeed complex, significant, and truly philosophically robust. Ranging from traditional research ethics notions of informed consent and respect for persons to such legal issues as loss of reputation and liability to larger, more complex issues such as privacy and autonomy, IRE contributes to a wide range of ethical, legal, and policy debates. Multiple layers of difference contribute to the complexity surrounding IRE: disciplinary differences in and to research, from the humanities to social sciences, for instance; national and international laws and policies differing over research ethics and human subjects protections; differences across the continuum of research done online, ranging from simple surveys to in-depth ethnographic studies of online communities, and so on. Much additional scholarship is necessary in this field, as online research is burgeoning while many researchers fall short of fulfilling their ethical responsibilities in online environments, not due to intentional malfeasance but to ignorance. A broader goal of this issue is to shed light on the larger domain of information ethics and how thinking first and foremost about this realm and a global information ethics helps us as researchers in online environments.The articles brought together in this issue come from a range of disciplines and from some of the foremost thinkers in information ethics in general and IRE in particular. First, Herman Tavani sets the stage with a framework for examining moral, legal, and social issues involving cybertechnology-the field he calls cyberethics. Tavani's discussion provides a thorough review of the field, which should help us as researchers in understanding the complexities of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and how researchers fit into this scheme. Whether or not cyber-, information, or Internet research ethics issues are indeed novel, as Tavani questions, IRE often finds itself embedded in the sorts of policy vacuums described. And, as Tavani carefully describes, different modes of ethics, from philosophical to descriptive to professional, inform us on multiple levels, while his methodological framework contributes to a researcher's starting point concerning fundamental ethical issues. We have seen these levels in the emergent IRE debate, and can refer to Tavani's discussion as IRE continues to grow in scope.From Tavani's large-scale discussion, we move more directly into IRE to consider some of its critical aspects. First, Annette Markham, who prominently placed Internet ethnography on the international research agenda with her Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space (1998) examines research itself, questioning the concept of ethics and how it dictates method, often resulting in compromised ethics and methods. Markham contextualizes her thoughtful discussion by asking questions of seminal importance to IRE: Who owns online data? Are online communities private or public spaces? How do we gain informed consent? How does one verify the age or vulnerability of participants? …

Drug abuse and dependence ‘represents different ends’ the same disease processes. Over the long-term, this dependence results in physical harms, behavioural problems and association with people that have seen seems abused. The actions of drugs are misused in all fields. This misused is not limited to therapeutic purposes, but to terminate the frustrated lives as well. During the past few years, dramatic changes have occurred in the field of drugs abuse. Magnificent increases is everywhere in the number of drug users who are the member of dominant culture. These users turn to some form of crude amateur crime like burglary, robbery and even the prostitution to support their habits. Juvenile’s addiction in the larger cities has become a major problem causing substantial harm to the society. The medico legal, social, moral and ethical issues will be briefed here. Key words: Substance abuse, drug dependence, legal issues, drug traffic.

Cataract surgery in the patient with dementia: justified paternalism?

This title explores Thomas Hardy's engagement with Victorian legal debates in his prose fiction. Thomas Hardy's fiction is examined in this book in the context of the seismic legal reforms of the nineteenth century as well as legal discourse in the literature of the era. The book examines the ways in which Hardy's role as a magistrate and his interest in the law impacted fundamentally on his prose fiction. It demonstrates that throughout his prose fiction Hardy engages with contentious legal issues that were debated by legal professionals and literary figures of his day. It also argues that Hardy used fiction as a forum to question the extent to which legal reform improved the lives of women and the working classes. The study looks at the ways in which Hardy deployed criminal plots derived from sensation fiction and reveals that the genre's engagement with legal reform influenced not only his sensation novel Desperate Remedies (1871) but also the plots of his subsequent fiction. It offers a reinterpretation of Thomas Hardy's work in the light of a detailed study of his legal interests and his use of contemporary legal cases and debates in his prose fiction. It provides detailed textual analysis of a wide range of legal interests in Hardy's entire output of fiction. It draws on the interdisciplinary study of Law and Literature. It examines Hardy's fiction in the context of other Victorian literature concerned with legal issues, particularly sensation fiction.