Editors' Statement on the Responsible Use of Generative AI Technologies in Scholarly Journal Publishing.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform many aspects of scholarly publishing. Authors, peer reviewers, and editors might use AI in a variety of ways, and those uses might augment their existing work or might instead be intended to replace it. We are editors of bioethics and humanities journals who have been contemplating the implications of this ongoing transformation. We believe that generative AI may pose a threat to the goals that animate our work but could also be valuable for achieving those goals. In the interests of fostering a wider conversation about how generative AI may be used, we have developed a preliminary set of recommendations for its use in scholarly publishing. We hope that the recommendations and rationales set out here will help the scholarly community navigate toward a deeper understanding of the strengths, limits, and challenges of AI for responsible scholarly work.

Conscientious commitment, professional obligations and abortion provision after the reversal of Roe v Wade.

We argue that, in certain circumstances, doctors might be professionally justified to provide abortions even in those jurisdictions where abortion is illegal. That it is at least professionally permissible does not mean that they have an all-things-considered ethical justification or obligation to provide illegal abortions or that professional obligations or professional permissibility trump legal obligations. It rather means that professional organisations should respect and indeed protect doctors' positive claims of conscience to provide abortions if they plausibly track what is in the best medical interests of their patients. It is the responsibility of state authorities to enforce the law, but it is the responsibility of professional organisations to uphold the highest standards of medical ethics, even when they conflict with the law. Whatever the legal sanctions in place, healthcare professionals should not be sanctioned by the professional bodies for providing abortions according to professional standards, even if illegally. Indeed, professional organisation should lobby to offer protection to such professionals. Our arguments have practical implications for what healthcare professionals and healthcare professional organisations may or should do in those jurisdictions that legally prohibit abortion, such as some US States after the reversal of Roe v Wade.

The 'Ethical' COVID-19 Vaccine is the One that Preserves Lives: Religious and Moral Beliefs on the COVID-19 Vaccine.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious public health and economic emergency, and although effective vaccines are the best weapon we have against it, there are groups and individuals who oppose certain kinds of vaccines because of personal moral or religious reasons. The most widely discussed case has been that of certain religious groups that oppose research on COVID-19 vaccines that use cell lines linked to abortions and that object to receiving those vaccine because of their moral opposition to abortion. However, moral opposition to COVID-19 vaccine research can be based on other considerations, both secular and religious. We argue that religious or personal moral objections to vaccine research are unethical and irresponsible, and in an important sense often irrational. They are unethical because of the risk of causing serious harm to other people for no valid reason; irresponsible because they run counter to individual and collective responsibilities to contribute to important public health goals; and in the case of certain kinds of religious opposition, they might be irrational because they are internally inconsistent. All in all, our argument translates into the rather uncontroversial claim that we should prioritize people's lives over religious freedom in vaccine research and vaccination roll out.

Social determinants of health and slippery slopes in assisted dying debates: lessons from Canada.

The question of whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying has recently come to the fore in debates about the legalisation of assisted dying. For example, it was central to critiques of the 2021 amendments made to Canada's assisted dying law. The question of whether changes to a country's assisted dying legislation lead to descents down slippery slopes has also come to the fore-as it does any time a jurisdiction changes its laws. We explore these two questions through the lens of Canada's experience both to inform Canada's ongoing discussions and because other countries will confront the same questions if they contemplate changing their assisted dying law. Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law has evolved through a journey from the courts to Parliament, back to the courts, and then back to Parliament. Along this journey the eligibility criteria, the procedural safeguards, and the monitoring regime have changed. In this article, we focus on the eligibility criteria. First, we explain the evolution of the law and what the eligibility criteria were at the various stops along the way. We then explore the ethical justifications for Canada's new criteria by looking at two elements of the often-corrosive debate. First, we ask whether problems with the social determinants of health that might impact decision-making justify denying eligibility for assisted dying of decisionally capable people with mental illnesses and people with disabilities as their sole underlying medical conditions. Second, we ask whether Canada's journey supports slippery slope arguments against permitting assisted dying.

Religion at Work in Bioethics and Biopolicy: Christian Bioethicists, Secular Language, Suspicious Orthodoxy.

The proper role, if any, for religion-based arguments is a live and sometimes heated issue within the field of bioethics. The issue attracts heat primarily because bioethical analyses influence the outcomes of controversial court cases and help shape legislation in sensitive biopolicy areas. A problem for religious bioethicists who seek to influence biopolicy is that there is now widespread academic and public acceptance, at least within liberal democracies, that the state should not base its policies on any particular religion's metaphysical claims or esoteric moral system. In response, bioethicists motivated by religious concerns have adopted two identifiable strategies. Sometimes they rely on slippery-slope arguments that, sometimes at least, have empirically testable premises. A more questionable response is the manipulation and misuse of secular-sounding moral language, such as references to "human dignity," and the plights of groups of people labeled "vulnerable."