Physician assisted suicide: new developments in the Netherlands

Until recently, physician assisted suicide was dealt with on the same basis as active voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. Over the last years, several cases relating to assistance in suicide of mental patients did raise specific issues, not addressed so far in the debate on euthanasia. One of these cases resulted in a Supreme Court decision. The paper summarizes this decision and comments on it from a legal point of view.     

PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE: NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Until recently, physician assisted suicide was dealt with on the same basis as active voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands. Over the last years, several cases relating to assistance in suicide of mental patients did raise specific issues, not addressed so far in the debate on euthanasia. One of these cases resulted in a Supreme Court decision. The paper summarizes this decision and comments on it from a legal point of view.     

Lessons for health care rationing from the case of child B.

More details have emerged about the child B leukaemia case with the publication of the All England Law Report on the Appeal Court decision. At the time the view was widely held that the controversy might have been avoided if the responsible health authority had consulted the public. The law report reveals, however, that the courts adopted a moral language widely at variance with that of the patient''s doctor. The courts were concerned to support a utilitarian decision procedure based on calculations of the greatest overall good; the doctor was concerned with the best interests of a sick child. The doctor-patient relationship may be damaged when public consideration transforms the issue in this way. Also, the Appeal Court supported a decision which claimed to have "weighed" opposing evaluations, but it excused the health authority from describing how that weighing took place. One of the main criticisms of the utilitarian approach, however, is that weighing of this type is extremely difficult to justify. By its ruling the court has made legal challenge on the grounds of inadequate consultation virtually impossible to substantiate.     

Religion,ethnicity and politics: Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrants in the United States

This article focuses on the political struggles between Hindu and Muslim Indian immigrant groups in the United States over the definition of "Indianness". Hindu Indian American organizations define India as a Hindu society and are strong supporters of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. Muslim Indian American organizations, on the other hand, view India as a multi-religious and multicultural society. They are striving to safeguard India's secularism and towards this end, have entered into coalitional relationships with lower caste groups. Both types of organizations are working to influence American and Indian politics in line with their respective interests, leading to an exacerbation of the conflict between the two immigrant groups. This article examines the reasons for this development and its implications, both for the development of an Indian American community in the United States and for religion and politics in India.     

Assisting suicide in Michigan

Perhaps no American state has seen more legal activity on assisting suicide than Michigan, but despite legislation, a study Commission, several legal cases and a state Supreme Court ruling, the state seems much further from a humane resolution of the question than when the activities of Dr. Jack Kevorkian began in June of 1990. This note summarizes major legal events over a twelve-month period (ending May, 95), which included jury acquittal of Dr. Kevorkian, the inconclusive report of the Michigan Commission on Death and Dying, the failure of the state legislature to enact legislation to replace the expired absolute but temporary prohibition, and the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in Mich v. Kevorkian declaring assisting suicide a common law felony and ruling that in certain circumstances a person assisting suicide can be prosecuted for murder. The Commission's model decriminalization proposal and the bills subsequently introduced in the legislature (all of which to varying degrees surrounded assisting suicide with restrictions and safeguards), as well as the decision of the Supreme Court, are discussed. Certain puzzling features of the latter, especially with regard to the kind of causation that can turn helping another commit suicide into murder, are noted.     

Indian Science for Indian Tigers?: Conservation Biology and the Question of Cultural Values

The implementation of Project Tiger in India, 1973–1974, was justly hailed as a triumph of international environmental advocacy. It occurred as a growing number of conservation-oriented biologists were beginning to argue forcefully for scientifically managed conservation of species and ecosystems – the same scientists who would, by the mid-1980s, call themselves conservation biologists. Although India accepted international funds to implement Project Tiger, it strictly limited research posts to Government of India Foresters, against the protests of Indian and US biologists who hoped to conduct the scientific studies that would lead to better management and thus more effective conservation of the tiger. The foresters were not trained to conduct research, and in fact did not produce any of significance for the first 15 years of Project Tiger’s existence. The failure of biologists to gain access to India’s tigers in the 1970s was caused by many factors, but not least among them was a history of disdain among conservation-oriented biologists for government officials managing reserves, and the local politics of conservation. Project Tiger, then, serves as a case study for the discussion of the intersection of conservation biology with non-scientific concerns, including nationalism and the desire of the Indian government to more completely control its land.¹I would like to thank the participants in the 2003 Southwest Colloquium for the Life Sciences for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper, as well as the two unusually helpful (anonymous) reviewers.     

Legal developments concerning active euthanasia on request in the Netherlands

The author describes social and legal developments in the debate over active euthanasia in the Netherlands. There, as in all of Western Europe, euthanasia is a crime. Although the medical profession in several European countries has rejected efforts to change the situation, the Dutch Medical Association in 1984 issued a statement indicating an increased willingness to accept euthanasia under stringent guidelines. Some court decisions have been lenient in applying penal law to doctors acting at the wish of their patients. The Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia published a 1985 report advocating modification of the Penal Code. [An English summary of the report appears in the same issue of Bioethics]. An emotional debate is underway in medical and legal journals and in the mass media, but the Council of State has advised against any legislative change for now. Meanwhile, euthanasia continues to occur in the Netherlands at an estimated rate of 5,000 to 8,000 cases a year.     

Final report of the Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia: an English summary

An unofficial summary is provided of the Final Report of the Netherlands State Commission on Euthanasia, submitted to the Minister of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs and the Minister of Justice on 19 Aug 1985. It describes the establishment of the State Commission, its working methods, and its recommendations for changes in the Criminal Code with regard to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Commission proposes that the Code be amended so that the intentional termination of another person's life at the latter's request would not be an offense if carried out by a doctor on a patient who is "in an untenable situation with no prospect of improvement." It makes recommendations regarding minors, the mentally handicapped, and prisoners, and regarding procedures for funeral arrangements and death certificates, the noninvolvement of parties other than patients and physicians in decision making, and the preparation and dispensing of drugs designed to terminate life.     

Mesozoic origin and ‘out-of-India’ radiation of ricefishes (Adrianichthyidae)

The Indian subcontinent has an origin geologically different from Eurasia, but many terrestrial animal and plant species on it have congeneric or sister species in other parts of Asia, especially in the Southeast. This faunal and floral similarity between India and Southeast Asia is explained by either of the two biogeographic scenarios, ‘into-India’ or ‘out-of-India’. Phylogenies based on complete mitochondrial genomes and five nuclear genes were undertaken for ricefishes (Adrianichthyidae) to examine which of these two biogeographic scenarios fits better. We found that Oryzias setnai, the only adrianichthyid distributed in and endemic to the Western Ghats, a mountain range running parallel to the western coast of the Indian subcontinent, is sister to all other adrianichthyids from eastern India and Southeast–East Asia. Divergence time estimates and ancestral area reconstructions reveal that this western Indian species diverged in the late Mesozoic during the northward drift of the Indian subcontinent. These findings indicate that adrianichthyids dispersed eastward ‘out-of-India’ after the collision of the Indian subcontinent with Eurasia, and subsequently diversified in Southeast–East Asia. A review of geographic distributions of ‘out-of-India’ taxa reveals that they may have largely fuelled or modified the biodiversity of Eurasia.     

From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Intelligent Design and the Constitution

Although the Supreme Court of the United States has never developed a single clear test for determining what kinds of state action violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, schools that attempt to teach or introduce intelligent design as a purportedly scientific alternative to evolution likely fall afoul of the First Amendment's commands. Under the Court's most relevant precedent, Edwards v. Aguillard, teaching intelligent design violates the Establishment Clause because, among other things, there is an enormous disconnect between the purpose of teaching intelligent design and its effect. Moreover, public school teachers do not possess any First Amendment right of academic freedom to disregard the clear instructions of a school principal or district not to teach or introduce intelligent design in their classrooms.     

Microsatellite markers from the Indian major carp species,Catla catla

The Indian major carp Catla catla is indigenous to the major river systems of Northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and is an important contributor to aquaculture production in India and Bangladesh. Five polymorphic microsatellite loci, developed from Catla catla are described and their utility in other major carp and cyprinid species is tested.     

Indentured migration and differential gender gene flow: the origin and evolution of the East-Indian community of Limón, Costa Rica

After the emancipation of African slaves in the Caribbean, the labor void left by out-migrating former slaves was filled by in-migrating indentured servants from prepartition India and China. In some areas of the Caribbean such as Trinidad, Suriname, and Guyana, the East-Indian migrants formed large communities. In this article, we report a study based on mtDNA and Y-chromosomal markers of a small East-Indian community from Limón, Costa Rica. The purpose of the project is to determine the place of origin in the Indian subcontinent of the ancestors of our group and the contributions to its gene pool through gene flow by members of other ethnic groups. Both Y-chromosome and mtDNA suggest that the Indo-Costa Ricans descend from migrants primarily from Central India. While both paternal and maternal markers indicate that this group is overwhelmingly of Indian origin, they also indicate that males and females of African, European, and Amerindian origin contributed to it differently. We discuss our results in the historical context of the virtual extinction of Amerindian Caribbean groups, the forced migration of African slaves to the Caribbean, and the gene flow between Amerindians, Europeans, East-Indians, and Africans that eventually produced the Caribbean's currently diverse gene pool.     

Review of taxonomic studies on freshwater Cladocera from India with remarks on biogeography

Ninety three species (97 taxa) of freshwater Cladocera are reported from India. Remarks are made on the nature and composition of the Indian cladoceran fauna and as well on the biogeography of various taxa.     

On euthanasia: exploring psychological meaning and attitudes in a sample of Mexican physicians and medical students

Euthanasia has become the subject of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. Since many physicians are deeply concerned about euthanasia, due to their crucial participation in its decision and implementation, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term 'euthanasia' has for them, as well as their attitudes toward this practice. This study explores psychological meaning and attitudes toward euthanasia in 546 Mexican subjects, either medical students or physicians, who were divided into three groups: a) beginning students, b) advanced students, and c) physicians. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term 'euthanasia'. Positive psychological meaning, as well as positive attitudes, prevailed among advanced students and physicians when defining euthanasia, whereas both positive and negative psychological meaning together with more ambivalent attitudes toward euthanasia predominated in beginning students. The findings are discussed in the context of a current debate on a bill proposing active euthanasia in Mexico City.     

Carol Anne Bond v the United States of America: how a woman scorned threatened the Chemical Weapons Convention

The case of Carol Anne Bond v the United States of America stemmed from a domestic dispute when Ms. Bond attempted to retaliate against her best friend by attacking her with chemical agents. What has emerged is a much greater issue--a test of standing on whether a private citizen can challenge the Tenth Amendment. Instead of being prosecuted in state court for assault, Ms. Bond was charged and tried in district court under a federal criminal statute passed as part of implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Ms. Bond's argument rests on the claim that the statute exceeded the federal government's enumerated powers in criminalizing her behavior and violated the Constitution, while the government contends legislation implementing treaty obligations is well within its purview. This question remains unanswered because there is dispute among the lower courts as to whether Ms. Bond, as a citizen, even has the right to challenge an amendment guaranteeing states rights when a state is not a party to the action. The Supreme Court heard the case on February 22, 2011, and, if it decides to grant Ms. Bond standing to challenge her conviction, the case will be returned to the lower courts. Should the court decide Ms. Bond has the standing to challenge her conviction and further questions the constitutionality of the law, it would be a significant blow to implementation of the CWC in the U.S. and the effort of the federal government to ensure we are meeting our international obligations.     

藏南柳区砾岩中古植物化石组合及其特征

柳区砾岩是在印度和欧亚板块碰撞之后伴随造山带的后期演化所形成的一套具有重要大地构造意义的山前磨拉石建造,它对确定印度/亚洲板块碰撞时间的上限、探讨青藏高原的隆升历史具有重要意义。作者等最近在野外考察过程中在该套磨拉石的上部层位再次找到了一批植物化石,经研究鉴定约有10余种,隶属7科9属。相比前人发现,这些植物化石多是新出现的科属种,而且大多数是已经灭绝的类型,与现生种的关系较远,因此它们的发现为西藏及喜马拉雅地区的古生物及古气候环境研究提供了重要信息,是对这一地区生物化石的重要增补。文中报道这些植物化石组合及其区系特征,探讨这些化石植物组合所反映的古气候条件,并对一些主要的植物化石特征进行了比较详细的描述。     

Gene patents and capital investment

Will the US Supreme Court''s ruling that genes can no longer be patented in the USA boost venture capital investment into biotech and medical startup companies?Three years ago, Noubar Afeyan, managing partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, was working with a biotech start-up company developing techniques for BRCA gene testing for breast cancer risk that avoided the patents held by Myriad Genetics, a molecular diagnostics company in Salt Lake City (Utah, USA) and the only operator in the field. However, despite the promise of the start-up''s techniques, investors were put off by Myriad''s extensive patent portfolio and fiercely defensive tactics: “A lot of investors were simply not willing to take that chance, even though our technology was superior in many ways and patentably different,” Afeyan said. The effort to launch the start-up ultimately failed.…it is also not clear how the Supreme Court''s ruling will affect the […] industry at large, now that one of the most contested patents for a human gene has been ruled invalidAfeyan believes the prospects for such start-ups improved on the morning of 13 June 2013 when the US Supreme Court ruled in an unanimous vote that Myriad''s fundamental patents on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes themselves are invalid, opening up the field to new competitors. The court''s ruling, however, validated Myriad''s patents for BRCA cDNA and methods-of-use.The court''s decision comes at a time when venture capital investment into the life sciences is projected to decline in the years ahead. Some believe that the court''s decision sets a precedent and could provide a boost for products, diagnostics and other tests under development that would have been legally difficult in the light of existing patents on human and other DNA sequences.The US Patent Office issued the original patents for the BRCA 1 and BRCA2 genes in 1997 and 1998 for the US National Institute of Environmental Health Services, the University of Utah and Myriad Genetics. One year earlier, Myriad had launched its first diagnostic test for breast cancer risk based on the two genes and has since aggressively defended it against both private and public competitors in court. Many universities and hospitals were originally offering the test for a lower cost, but Myriad forced them to stop and eventually monopolized BRCA-based diagnostics for breast cancer risk in the USA and several other countries.“Myriad did not create anything,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the Supreme Court''s decision. “To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.” Even so, the court did uphold Myriad''s patents on the methodology of its test. Ron Rogers, a spokesman for the biotech firm, said the Supreme Court had “affirmed the patent eligibility of synthetic DNA and underscored the importance and applicability of method-of-use patents for gene-based diagnostic tests. Before the Supreme Court case we had 24 patents and 520 claims. After the Supreme Court decision, we still have 24 patents. […] [T]he number of our patent claims was reduced to 515. In the Supreme Court case itself, only nine of our 520 patent claims were at issue. Of the nine, the Supreme Court ruled that five were not patent-eligible and they ruled that four were patent-eligible. We still have strong intellectual property protection surrounding our BRCA test and the Supreme Court''s decision doesn''t change that.”Within hours of the ruling, capitalism kicked into high gear. Two companies, Ambry Genetics in Alieso Viejo, California, and Gene by Gene Ltd in Houston, Texas, USA, announced that they were launching tests for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes for less than the US$3,100 Myriad has been charging privately insured patients and US$2,795 for patients covered by Medicare—the government health plan for the elderly and disabled. Several other companies and universities also announced they would be offering BRCA testing.Entrepreneur Bennett Greenspan, a managing partner of Gene by Gene, explained that his company had been poised to offer BRCA testing if the Supreme Court ruled against Myriad. He said, “We had written a press release with our PR firm a month before the release of the Supreme Court with the intention that if the Supreme Court overruled the patent or invalidated the patent that we would launch right away and if they didn''t, we would just tear up the press release.” His company had previously offered BRCA gene testing in Israel based on guidelines from the European Union.Myriad Genetics has not given up defending its patents, however. On 9 and 10 July 2013, it slapped Ambry and Gene by Gene with lawsuits in the US District Court in Salt Lake City for allegedly infringing on patents covering synthetic DNA and methods-of-use related to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Rogers commented that the testing processes used by the firms “infringes 10 patents covering synthetic primers, probes and arrays, as well as methods of testing, related to the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.”On 6 August 2013, Ambry countersued Myriad, arguing that the company “continues a practice of using overreaching practices to wrongfully monopolize the diagnostic testing of humans'' BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in the United States and to attempt to injure any competitor […] Due to Myriad''s anticompetitive conduct, customers must pay significantly higher prices for Myriad''s products in the relevant market, often nearly twice as high as the price of Ambry''s products and those of other competitors” [1].Just as the courts will have to clarify whether the competitors in this case infringe on Myriad''s patents, it is also not clear how the Supreme Court''s ruling will affect the biotech and diagnostics industry at large, now that one of the most contested patents for a human gene has been ruled invalid. In recent years, venture capital investment into the life sciences has been in decline. The National Venture Capital Association and the Medical Innovation & Competitiveness Coalition reported from a survey that, “An estimated funding loss of half a billion dollars over the next three years will cost America jobs at a time when we desperately need employment growth” [2]. The survey of 156 venture capital firms found that 39% of respondents said they had reduced investment in the life sciences during the previous three years, and the same proportion intended to do so in the next three years. “[US Food and Drug Administration] FDA regulatory challenges were identified as having the highest impact on these investment decisions,” the report states, adding that many investors intended to shift their focus from the US towards Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.Another report from the same groups explains how public policy involving the FDA and other players in “the medical innovation ecosystem”—including the US patent system, public agencies, tax policy, securities regulation, immigration laws and private groups such as insurers—affect the decisions of investors to commit to funding medical innovation [3].Some investors think that the court decision about the patentability of human DNA will increase confidence and help to attract investors back to the life sciencesSome investors think that the court decision about the patentability of human DNA will increase confidence and help to attract investors back to the life sciences. “The clarity is helpful because for the longest time people didn''t do things because of ambiguity about whether those patents would be enforceable,” Afeyan said. “It''s one thing to not do something because of a patent, it''s another to not do something because you know that they have patents but you''re not sure what it''s going to stop you from doing because it hasn''t been really fully fleshed out. Now I think it is reasonably well fleshed out and I think you will see more innovation in the space.”Others also appreciate the clarification from the Supreme Court about what is a patentable invention in regard to human genes and DNA. “The Myriad decision was a very solid reading of the underlying purpose of our patent law, which is to reward novel invention,” commented Patrick Chung, a partner with New Enterprise Associates, a venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California, which invested in 23andMe, a personal genomics company based in Mountain View (California, USA), and who serves on the 23andMe board.But not everyone agrees that the Supreme Court''s decision has provided clarity. “You could spin it and say that it was beneficial to create some certainty, but at the end of the day, what the Court did was reduce the scope of what you''re allowed to get patent claims on,” said Michael Schuster, a patent lawyer and Intellectual Property Partner and Co-Chair of the Life Sciences Group at Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco, California, USA. “It''s going to be a continuing dance between companies, smart patent lawyers, and the courts to try to minimize the impact of this decision.”Kevin Noonan, a molecular biologist and patent lawyer with McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP in Chicago, Illinois, USA, commented that he does not expect the Supreme Court decision will have much of an impact on venture investments or anything else. “This case comes at a time fortunately when biotechnology is mature enough so that the more pernicious effects of the decision are not going to be quite as harmful as they would if this had happened ten, 15 or 20 years ago,” he said. “We''re now in the ‘post-genomic'' era; since the late ‘90s and turn of the century, the genomic and genetic data from the Human Genome Project have been on publicly available databases. As a consequence, if a company didn''t apply for a patent before the gene was disclosed publicly, it certainly is not able to apply for a patent now. The days of obtaining these sequences and trying to patent them are behind us.”Noonan also noted that the Myriad Genetics patents were due to expire in 2014–2015 anyway. “Patents are meaningless if you can''t enforce them. And when they expire, you can no longer enforce them. So it really isn''t an impediment to genetic testing now,” he explained. “What the case illustrates is a disconnect between scientists and lawyers. That''s an old battle.”George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) and Director of the Personal Genome Project, maintains that the Supreme Court decision will have minimal influence on the involvement of venture capitalists in biotech. “I think it''s a non-issue. It''s basically addressing something that was already dead. That particular method of patenting or trying to patent components of nature without modification was never really a viable strategy and in a particular case of genes, most of the patents in the realm of bio-technology have added value to genes and that''s what they depend on to protect their patent portfolio—not the concept of the gene itself,” he said. “I don''t know of any investor who is freaked out by this at all. Presumably there are some, because the stock oscillates. But you can get stock to oscillate with all kinds of nonsense. But I think the sober, long-term investors who create companies that keep innovating are not impacted.”Church suggests that the biggest concern for Myriad now is whole-gene sequencing, rather than the Supreme Court''s decision. “Myriad should be worrying about the new technology, and I''m sure they''ve already considered this. The new technology allows you to sequence hundreds of genes or the whole genome for basically the price they''ve been charging all along for two genes. And from what I understand, they are expanding their collection to many genes, taking advantage of next generation sequencing as other companies have already,” he said.Whatever its consequences in the US, the Supreme Court''s decision will have little impact on other parts of the world, notably Europe, where Myriad also holds patents on the BRCA genes in several countries. Gert Matthijs, Head of the Laboratory for Molecular Diagnostics at the Centre for Human Genetics in Leuven, Belgium, says that even though the US Supreme Court has invalidated the principle of patenting genes in America, the concept remains in Europe and is supported by the European Parliament and the European Patent Convention. “Legally, nothing has changed in Europe,” he commented. “But there is some authority from the US Supreme Court even if it''s not legal authority in Europe. Much of what has been used as arguments in the Supreme Court discussions has been written down by the genetics community in Europe back in 2008 in the recommendations on behalf of the European Society for Human Genetics. The Supreme Court decision is something that most of us in Europe would agree upon only because people have been pushing towards protecting the biotech industry that the pendulum was so way out in Europe.”Benjamin Jackson, Senior Director of legal affairs at Myriad Genetics, commented that Myriad holds several patents in Europe that are not likely to be affected by the Supreme Court''s ruling. “The patent situation both generally and for Myriad is a lot clearer in Europe. The European Union Biotech Directive very clearly says that isolated DNA is patentable even if it shares the same sequence as natural DNA,” he said. “Right now, it''s pretty uncontroversial, or at least it''s well settled law basically in Europe that isolated DNA is patentable.” However, while the Directive states that “biological material which is isolated from its natural environment or produced by means of a technical process” might be patentable “even if it previously occurred in nature”, the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, Germany, requires that the subject matter is an inventive step and not just an obvious development of existing technology and that the industrial application and usefulness must be disclosed in the application.Myriad has opened a headquarters in Zurich and a lab in Munich during the past year, hoping to make inroads in Europe. In some EU countries, Myriad offers its BRCA test as part of cancer diagnosis. In other countries, BRCA testing is conducted at a fraction of what Myriad charges in the USA, either because institutions ignore the patents that are not enforced in their jurisdictions, or because these countries, such as Belgium, were not included in the patent granted by the European Patent Office. Moreover, in various countries BRCA testing is only available through the healthcare system and only as part of a more extensive diagnosis of cancer risk. In addition, as Matthijs commented, “[t]he healthcare system in Europe is very heterogeneous and that''s also of course a big impediment for a big laboratory to try and conquer Europe because you have to go through different reimbursement policies in different countries and that''s not easy.”Ultimately, it seems the Supreme Court''s decision might turn out to have little impact on biotech firms in either the USA or Europe. Technological advances, in particular new sequencing technologies, might render the issue of patenting individual genes increasingly irrelevant.     

Malaria in inter-war British India

British India was an important site of much important malaria research. Although Ronald Ross left India in 1899, a number of malariologists continued the task of evaluating the incidence and distribution of malaria in the country. Implementing practical solutions was hampered by formidable social and economic problems. This paper examines the Indian situation in the late 1920s, through a retrospective selection of writings chosen by J.A. Sinton for reproduction in an early issue of 'The records of the malaria survey of India', and the analysis of the Indian malaria situation through a visit of the League of Nations Malaria Commission in 1929.     

Selective abortion in Brazil: the anencephaly case

This paper discusses the Brazilian Supreme Court ruling on the case of anencephaly. In Brazil, abortion is a crime against the life of a fetus, and selective abortion of non-viable fetuses is prohibited. Following a paradigmatic case discussed by the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2004, the use of abortion was authorized in the case of a fetus with anencephaly. The objective of this paper is to analyze the ethical arguments of the case, in particular the strategy of avoiding the moral status of the fetus, the cornerstone thesis of the Catholic Church.