A government advisory committee recommended that 11- and 12-year-old girls be routinely vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. The vaccine is most effective when it’s administered to girls before they become sexually active. But with the potential for premarital sex involved, the recommendation has been caught between science, politics and religion.

In 1988, Larry Youngblood was convicted and sent to prison for raping a child. The evidence was overwhelming but justice was not done, raising the question: in the matter of a serious crime, when someone is given a long prison sentence, should it ever be too late to reopen the case?

Drug makers and neuroscientists are enhancing what human brains can do, but what are the implications of these developments? For instance, what if brain researchers someday learn to find out what a patient is thinking? Or to predict a disabling disease? Or, right now, what about so-called “smart pills” that improve a college student’s performance on an exam?

The story of a group of American soldiers, all conscientious objectors and Seventh Day Adventists, who volunteered to expose themselves to deadly viruses and bacteria, rather than go to war. Over a 20-year period, beginning in the 1950s, the army used them to test vaccines against biological weapons. Most of them recall the experience without regret.

MRI technology is currently used to gain insight into how behaviors and thoughts function biologically, and might one day lead to the ability to predict future behavior. However, the potential for such technology leads to troubling ethical questions.

Read excerpts from R&E’s interview about health care ethics with Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, a pediatrician at the Upper Cardozo Community Health Center in Washington, D.C., clinical professor of pediatrics and public health at George Washington University, editor of the health policy journal HEALTH AFFAIRS, and author of BIG DOCTORING IN AMERICA.

Many scientists say the most promise for curing various diseases is to clone human embryos to cure the sick. Therapeutic cloning is sharply controversial because it destroys the original human embryo. Reverend William Abernethy suffers from Parkinson's disease and is one of the many hoping to receive medical help through the therapeutic cloning process.

If you are interested in the ethical problems raised by advances in science, then you are likely to find Stephen Spielberg's new movie, MINORITY REPORT, a bit disappointing.

In France, the government has stepped into a furor over whether there is or should be a right not to be born. The highest court implied there should be, but the National Assembly said no. The issue came to a head when the court awarded money on behalf of a handicapped child, saying that he could claim damages because doctors had not detected his disability in the womb.

As a result of the Human Genome Project, we now know much more about a person's medical future than ever before. But this new knowledge has given rise to many medical, legal, and ethical questions