Скачать или смотреть The ethics newsletter | Women on the internet, refusal of treatment, designer babies

This week, we look at the recent ethical dilemmas defining our future

Pharmacists as moral agents. A major US legal dispute is redefining the pharmacist's role. Do healthcare professionals have the right to refuse prescriptions (like gender-affirming care) based on personal religious beliefs?
Designer babies. Does the Silicon Valley elite have the right to create "optimized babies"? We look at the PGT-P technology and the massive financial stakes, featuring investors like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. The ethical warning is clear: we risk reviving eugenics and establishing unstoppable genetic inequality through undemocratic "charter or startup cities."
Programmed Digital Bias. Age and gender are being distorted online. A landmark Nature study shows women are systematically represented as younger in Google Images and in AI models like ChatGPT. How are these algorithms amplifying bias against experienced female workers?

KEY QUESTIONS
1. When is personal conscience a protection, and when does it become a professional dereliction of duty?
2. What is the ethical cost of eliminating unpredictability from the human experience through genetics?
3. Can we fight a statistically programmed flaw embedded in the foundational data of AI?

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Links:

1. Title: Age and gender distortion in online media and large language models
Author: Douglas Guilbeault, Solène Delecourt, Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan
Description: Stereotypes of age-related gender bias are socially distorted, as evidenced by the age gap in the representations of women and men across various media and algorithms, despite no systematic age differences in the workforce.
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...
2. Title: Conflict at the counter: When pharmacists’ and patients’ values collide
Author: Elizabeth Chiarello, Associate Professor of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis
Description: Controversies often arise over pharmacists refusing to dispense medication, from Plan B to unproven COVID-19 treatments. Each one raises questions about professional rights and responsibilities.
URL: https://theconversation.com/conflict-...
3. Title: The race to make the perfect baby is creating an ethical mess
Author: Julia Black
Description: Consider, if you will, the translucent blob in the eye of a microscope: a human blastocyst, the biological specimen that emerges just five days or so after a fateful encounter between egg and sperm. This bundle of cells, about the size of a grain of sand pull…
URL: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025...
https://www.removepaywall.com/search?...
4. Title: Daily briefing: Making babies with lab-grown eggs and sperm
Author: Flora Graham
Description: Sex cells made from scratch could revolutionize human reproduction. Plus, a conference in which all the authors and reviewers are AI systems and the impact of the government shutdown on US science.
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
5. Title: Building a Synthetic Cell Together
Author: None
Description: Synthetic cells are artificial constructs designed to mimic cellular functions, offering insights into fundamental biology, as well as promising impact in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and bioengineering. In this perspective, the authors highlight ma…
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
6. Title: Socioeconomic disparities impacting breast cancer care and survival in Iran
Author: Mojtaba Vand Rajabpour, Saeed Nemati, Monireh Sadat Seyyedsalehi, Azin Nahvijou, Sepideh Abdi, Maryam Garousi, Ramesh Omranipour, Alireza Abdollahi, Mahdi Aghili, Ali Motlagh, Shaghayegh Haghjooy Javanmad, Kazem Zendehdel
Description: Scientific Reports - Socioeconomic disparities impacting breast cancer care and survival in Iran
URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
7. Title: The dark history of medical illustrations and the question of consent
Author: Lucy E. Hyde, Lecturer, Anatomy, University of Bristol
Description: Historical anatomy textbooks are built on the bodies of prisoners, the poor and the powerless – and we’re still using them today.
URL: https://theconversation.com/the-dark-...
8. Title: Europe’s dependence moment
Author: Sofia Mandilara
Description: In today’s edition: Europe’s dependence on the US grows as Trump shapes foreign policy from afar, Bulgaria opens its skies for Putin ahead of the Budapest summit, and the Commission begins quietly dismantling the Green Deal under political pressure
URL: https://www.euractiv.com/news/rapport...