In recent years, the number of young people with gender dysphoria, or extreme discomfort in one’s biological sex, has skyrocketed in the US and Western Europe. Professor Lisa Littman, a…

Embryonic stem cells have held out a certain appeal and promise because they are remarkably flexible. Researchers can make various cell types out of them, whether nerve cells or pancreatic…

When I was recently visiting with friends, a group of young girls was playing in a neighboring yard. Every few minutes, for more than an hour, one of them would…

How do we determine that someone has died? The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), which has been an important part of the medical and legal landscape in the U.S.…

As internet pornography continues to make inroads into the daily lives of millions, greater numbers of young women are making the decision to participate in its production, with some even…

In recent years, a number of US states have legalized a new way to process human corpses that some have called “dissolving the dead.” Its technical name is “alkaline hydrolysis,”…

Sometimes people will contact the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) wondering if the decisions they made on behalf of a dying family member were the right ones. The NCBC provides…

The possibility of suffering from dementia later in life is a worrisome and unpleasant prospect for many of us. Most people I know would like to remain in possession of…

Researchers are investigating a new generation of drugs for treating mental illness derived from psychedelic substances. A molecule known as psilocybin, for example, found in “magic mushrooms,” appears to be…