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The concept of evolution has evolved over time. This is the conclusion reached by Carlo Bellieni and Lourdes Velàzquez, examining the biological and philosophical literature that concerns this topic. From an evolution based on competition to make the fittest prevail, we have moved on to an evolution that admits the collaboration between species and of single beings with their environment, among the forces that produced it. Now we know that the environment can influence how genes mutate, even though it does not directly produce a mutation. Evolution based on competition produced Malthusianism and social Darwinism, which were used to justify the prevalence of one people over a "less suitable" one; this scheme now shows its limits.
This book illustrates why a holistic approach is important in Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC). Readers will learn this approach has a “horizontal” axis, featuring the patients’ mental and physical needs, as well as their environments. It has also a “vertical axis”: the evolutive changes of the patients throughout their development and their illness, their aspirations and fears. An evolutive (or dynamic) approach is mandatory. Each child/parent has a different experience of illness and a different path to recovery that is influenced by their age, gender, culture, but also by the state of their grief. To take care of them, we need to know the state of the subjects we are dealing with...
This is the first book dealing with fetal pain and its consequences and with pain in premature babies. The volume gives an overview of the current knowledge in this field. An international team of renowned specialists evaluates neonatal and fetal pain from the different points of view, and possible consequences of pain – even psychological – on the brain. This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals and for post-graduate students in all disciplines.
There is perhaps no more important value than fundamental human equality. And yet, despite large percentages of people affirming the value, the resources available to explain and defend the basis for such equality are few and far between. In his newest book Charles Camosy provides a thoughtful defense of human dignity. Telling personal stories like those of Jahi McMath, Terri Schiavo, and Alfie Evans, Camosy, a noted bioethicist and theologian, uses an engaging style to show how the influence of secularized medicine is undermining fundamental human equality in the broader culture. And in a disturbing final chapter, Camosy sounds the alarm about the next population to fall if we stay on our current trajectory: dozens of millions of human beings with dementia. Heeding this alarm, Camosy argues, means doing two things. First, making urgent and genuine attempts to dialogue with a secularized culture which cannot see how it is undermining one of its most foundational values. Second, religious communities which hold the Imago Dei sacred must mobilize their existing institutions (and create new ones) to care for a new set of human beings our throwaway culture may deem non-persons.
The Ethics of Pregnancy, Abortion and Childbirth addresses the unique moral questions raised by pregnancy and its intimate bodily nature. From assisted reproduction to abortion and ‘vital conflict’ resolution to more everyday concerns of the pregnant woman, this book argues for pregnancy as a close human relationship with the woman as guardian or custodian. Four approaches to pregnancy are explored: ‘uni-personal’, ‘neighborly’, ‘maternal’ and ‘spousal’. The author challenges not only the view that there is only one moral subject to consider in pregnancy, but also the idea that the location of the fetus lacks all inherent, unique significance. It is argued that the pregna...
Though some argue that bioethics in the Black African world is simply a reflection of the Western approach to bioethics, this work suggests otherwise. While the Western approach (bioethical principlism) claims to offer an absolute approach to bioethics in a universalized common morality, this book argues that bioethical principlism can be complemented with African approaches to bioethics. Western principlism, as primarily presented by Thomas L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, can hardly be incarnated in the African context of bioethical problems unless it is complemented by a contextual normative understanding of African social realities, realities that themselves must be enriched by bioet...
Is the concept of sustainability strongly founded on solid scientific bases? And can this elusive concept be introduced in the economic framework and embodied in people's behavior as well as public and private institutions' decision making? This book presents a view of sustainability that starts from the acknowledgment of physical conditions and limits that humans can no longer neglect. It also includes some epistemological foundations of the concept of sustainability and historical backgrounds. The view is optimistic to the extent that economics, the compass of our industrial society, is open to inputs and suggestions coming from outside orthodox schemes. Transdisciplinary science is one ke...
This book, the third and final volume in the Meaning of Pain series, describes what pain means to people with pain in “vulnerable” groups, and how meaning changes pain – and them – over time. Immediate pain warns of harm or injury to the person with pain. If pain persists over time, more complex meanings can become interwoven with this primitive meaning of threat. These cognitive meanings include thoughts and anxiety about the adverse consequences of pain. Such meanings can nourish existential sufferings, which are more about the person than the pain, such as loss, loneliness, or despair. Although chronic pain can affect anyone, there are some groups of people for whom particular cli...
This authoritative volume describes the role of free radicals and antioxidants in prenatal and perinatal disorders currently explored in clinical and pre-clinical trials. In twenty-two inclusive chapters, the book covers the gamut of oxidative stress and its relation to a variety of factors, including fertility, metabolism, redox biomarkers, antioxidant defense and protection, gene polymorphisms, angiogenesis, cell signaling, mutations and oxidative damage involving lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, membrane trafficking, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, alterations in immunological function, hypoxia, and post-natal stressors. This comprehensive source will keep clinicians and research scientists up-to-date on translational research into medical applications. Perinatal and Prenatal Disorders is a significant addition to the well-known Oxidative Stress in Applied Basic Research and Clinical Practice series.
This completely revised and updated edition offers a comprehensive overview of neonatal pain assessment and treatment. It includes the field of fetal surgery, and many other topics have been updated or added, such as circumcision analgesia, new drugs, new insights into neurophysiologic pathways of neonatal pain and new drawbacks of analgesic drugs. While in the early years of the 21st century pain treatment in neonates was still optional, it is now a tenet, and more and more institutions are looking for inspiration and good references to create their own guidelines. Written by leading researchers in the field, this book provides that inspiration and offers a valuable tool for neonatologists, anesthetists, nurses and physiotherapists. Since it also deals with prenatal and postnatal surgery, it also appeals to surgeons.