What’s next for AI in 2025?

 "Will AI take a sinister turn — insert nightmarish sci-fi movie plot here — and destroy us all in 2025 ?While humanity continues to debate its uses, merits, dangers, opportunities, and ethics, the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues apace, making it difficult for anyone to guess just how it might shape the world in 2025, " says Jonah McKeown. 

"AI should be a tool used to enhance the human element of health care, not replace it; he spoke of the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and the need for human empathy, which AI cannot provide."

More at: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/261369/what-s-next-for-ai-in-2025-catholic-experts-weigh-in

ANZSPM: "Euthanasia and assisted suicide are not a solution to patient suffering"

Xavier Simons wrote an excellent article and published by BioEdge on November 16. This article is particularly important against euthanasia and assisted suicide. Palliative care is undermined by euthanasia and assisted suicide, according to many palliative care organisations. In Australia, where end-of-life issues are hotly debated, the leading palliative care body has joined the chorus of opposition.

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Palliative Medicine (ANZSPM) has released a new position statement on the practices, arguing that euthanasia and assisted suicide are not a solution to patient suffering, and that legalising the procedures would take attention away from the real issue - a lack of access to palliative care.

In the document the ANZSPM emphasises, "There is a clear distinction between good care for the dying and active interventions instituted in order to deliberately end the life of a patient." Instead of providing VE or PAS, doctors should try to alleviate symptoms: "When requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide arise, particular attention should be given to gaining good symptom control, especially of those symptoms that research has highlighted may commonly be associated with a serious and sustained ‘desire for death’ (e.g. depressive disorders and poorly controlled pain)."

Out of a the ten point policy statement, three points stressed "the significant deficits in the provision of palliative care in Australia and New Zealand". ANZSPM called for new government "health reform programs", as well as increased carer support for respite care, so as "decrease the sense of burden for many patients at the end of life." Statements also stressed: "When requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide arise, particular attention should be given to gaining good symptom control, especially of those symptoms that research has highlighted may commonly be associated with a serious and sustained "desire for death" (e.g. depressive disorders and poorly controlled pain). In such situations early referral to an appropriate specialist should be considered. Despite the best that Palliative Care can offer to support patients in their suffering, appropriate specialist Palliative Care to remedy physical, psychological and spiritual difficulties may not relieve all suffering at all times."

See also an excellent article by Lawyer, Margaret Dore: Quick Facts About Assisted Suicide. This article is particularly important considering the push in New Jersey to legalize assisted suicide.

Abortion brings with it considerable risks

Research in Finland published in the journal “Human Reproduction” collected data from all 300,858 first-time mothers in Finland between 1996 and 2008, LifeNews.com reported on Sept.6. The results showed that women were three times more likely to have a very premature baby, born before 28 weeks, if they had had three or more abortions.
According to an analysis of the findings published by LifeNews.com and written by Dr. Peter Saunders, it is an important study, but by no means the first revealing such risks. He said there are “around 120 articles in the world literature already attesting to an association between abortion and premature birth.”

Nevertheless, the Finnish study carries a lot of weight due to the large number of women in it and also because it controlled for factors such as maternal age, socioeconomic level and various health factors. Similar results were found in another study also recently published. Lead researcher Professor Siladitya Bhattacharya, chair in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Aberdeen, and his colleagues studied how differing methods of abortion affected the future likelihood of premature births, the Medical Daily Web site reported on Sept. 5. They looked at the records of Scottish women from 1981 to 2007 and found that abortions increased the risk of giving birth prematurely in future pregnancies by an average of 37% compared to women who had never been pregnant before.

Complications

The study was presented at the British Science Festival. The risk of complications in future pregnancies rises with each abortion. As well, the research showed that having just one abortion brings with it a significant risk for the safety of later pregnancies. "We found that women who had an induced abortion in their first pregnancy were more at risk of maternal and perinatal risks in comparison with women who had had a live birth or no previous pregnancy," said Bhattacharya.
A further recent study, titled “Short and long term mortality rates associated with first pregnancy outcome: Population register based study for Denmark 1980–2004,” was published by David Reardon and Priscilla Coleman. They looked at the records of 463,473 women who had their first pregnancy between 1980 and 2004, of whom 2,238 died. “In nearly all time periods examined, mortality rates associated with miscarriage or abortion of a first pregnancy were higher than those associated with birth,” according to a summary of the study published by the Medical Science Monitor. Commenting on the risks of abortion for the Family Research Council, Jeanne Monahan pointed out that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, at least 450 women have died in the United States as a result of abortion complications. Monahan added that this is a low estimate because many states do not report abortion data. This includes California, which, she noted accounts for approximately one-fifth of all abortions in the United States. She also commented on the risks from the use of chemical abortion, with the pharmaceutical RU-486. According to the Food and Drug Administration as of April 2011 (10 and a half years after RU-486 was approved in the U.S.), there were 2,207 adverse event reports on file with the government. This includes 612 hospitalizations, 339 blood transfusions and 11 deaths.

Maternal mortality

Additional information on the health risks of abortion came in an article published Sept. 6 by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. According to Wendy Wright a study from Sri Lanka found that in developing countries widespread misuse of abortion “has led to partial or septic abortion thereby increasing maternal mortality and morbidity.” Further studies, carried out by the Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, found that RU-486 has high complication rates, with greater medical risks to women in developing countries. In Vietnam, for example, one in four women who used RU-486 had to subsequently undergo a surgical abortion due to an incomplete result from the pharmaceutical. Wright put at 14 the number of women who have died in the United States as a result of using RU-486 since it was legalized. Nevertheless, the push to make RU-486 available continues. In Australia until now only a small number of doctors were authorized to administer it, but now pharmacies will be able to sell it following a decision by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the Australian newspaper reported Aug. 31. In the past six years that RU-486 has been available in Australia, TGA figures show 792 cases of "adverse events" from the use of the drugs. “Women facing un-supported pregnancy should be offered real choices by our society, not a dangerous chemical to poison their unborn child,” commented Wendy Francis for the Australian Christian Lobby. A valid point not only for Australia but for other countries as well.

(September 21, 2012) © Innovative Media Inc.

Recognizing personhood for all human beings

Pro-life Wisconsin has issued truly awesome a video with a brief but straightforward message: in a world increasingly aware of human rights, can it be long before the battle is won for recognizing personhood for all human beings - born and unborn?

True Stories: Google Baby, the scary story of the up and coming baby production industry in the age of globalization.

If you still think that the bioethics issues today are "not the big deal ethical issues" then you should see Zippi Brand Frank's documentary 'Google Baby' that gives us a shocking insight into the global business of making babies. What this film shows us is how human beings become tradable commodities in globalized world. In one word: scary!

Google Baby is a journey across three continents telling the story of the up and coming baby production industry in the age of globalization. Doron, an Israeli entrepreneur with a high tech background proposes a new service - Baby production. The baby producer (as he introduces himself) provides customers with a cost effective solution using outsourcing of the surrogacy element to India as way to lower prices. The preferred genetic material is selected by the clients and the rest is left in the hands of the producer: Sperm and eggs are purchased on-line and multiple embryos are produced and frozen. Packed in liquid nitrogen only the embryos that fit the customers preferences are shipped by air to India - where they are implanted into the wombs of local surrogates. The customers arrive only at the end of the nine month pregnancy period to pick up their babies. Today, technology has turned 'making a baby' into an act independent of sex. And globalization is making it affordable.

Source: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/google-baby/video/trailer.html

***As alternative movie (which I personally recommend)see Eggsploitation made by The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. Documentary Eggsploitation is a compelling and revealing documentary that gives the viewer an up-close look at the flipside of the infertility industry. See more at http://www.eggsploitation.com/index.htm

Spanish Bishops Sub-commission on Family and Life: "There's always a reason to live. What's yours?"

"The bishops' Sub-commission on Family and Life launched the campaign with a statement that laments a "darkness that leads to not appreciating the grandeur and beauty of each human life loved eternally by God."

They said that many people fail to discover the goodness of life "when it is accompanied by serious illnesses, psychic or physical disabilities, times of poverty, loneliness, weakness that accompanies the passing of the years or at the moment of the end of one's life."

"When society is unable to give meaning to pain or to human fragility and abandons persons to loneliness," the statement added, "the members of the Church feel urged to respond with the love of Christ and to generate hope in persons who, on feeling that they are loved and supported in their suffering or loneliness, can overcome deceptions and sorrows, that is, they can find the reason to live."

In less than three minutes it presents four stories: that of an elderly man in the hospital with his son; a sick child who receives a gift from his family and friends; two disabled persons who show affection for others and for each other; and a grandmother who reads a story to her grandchildren.

The Web site has a section that invites viewers to give their own reflection, asking: "There's always a reason to live. What's yours?"
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On the Net: www.siemprehayunarazonparavivir.com
Source: ZE11031812 - 2011-03-18; Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-32061?l=english