The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity

The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (CBHD) is a Christian academic research center at LeTourneau University

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

In the Bioethics Weekly:
Christian Hippocratism & The Internal Morality of NP Practice [The Hottest Job in Healthcare]: The Unique Perspective of the Nurse Practitioner Ethicist
https://t.co/Bahz0Y4bxe

+ Ozempic shows unexpected new side effect in the brain
+ At the Epicenter of A.I., Pope Leo’s Warnings Are Dismissed
+ Embryos made without sperm or eggs reveal why many pregnancies fail
+ First pig liver and kidneys transplanted into a person — strategy could ease organ shortages
+ Inside Putin’s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity
+++ MORE +++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

A thoughtful engagement with the many issues arising around vaccines and public trust today featuring Richard K. Zimmerman, MD MPH MA (Bioethics) FAAFP FIDSA, tenured professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh.
https://t.co/5zsbt3HLVF

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

This BIOETHICS MONTHLY: So much crammed into a single update!
https://t.co/dy1kq465j8
+ Bored in a Digital Age
+ Amplify CBHD’s Voice
+ Join Us In Person or Online
+ Making Physician-Assisted Suicide Unthinkable
+ The Challenge of Pastoral Leadership Today: What Is Our Technological Age Doing to Us?
+ Ethics & Medicine: Remembering the
+ Life and Legacy of Robert D. Orr (1941–2021)
CBHD Research Library Update
+++MORE+++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

Our friends in the Anglican tradition, and others, will be interested to know about the launch of The Anglican Bioethics Center. They're hosting two launch events, one tonight (June 2) and one next Tuesday (June 9), each at 5:30 Eastern. Both events will be livestreamed on their Facebook page:
https://t.co/6yUSaqoedR

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

The Wall Street Journal last week declared Nurse Practitioner "the Hottest Job in Healthcare." We already had lined up for this month's conference a plenary address entitled, "Christian Hippocratism & The Internal Morality of NP Practice: The Unique Perspective of the Nurse Practitioner Ethicist." And it's just one of six outstanding plenaries, workshops, and papers scheduled for June 25-27. Join us online OR in person!
https://t.co/cMacYiaoT7

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

This BIOETHICS WEEKLY:
+ Bored in a Digital Age
+ E&M Remembers Robert Orr
+ Join Us in Person or Online
https://t.co/X2gEfjSErL

+ Doctors’ AI Systems Are Hallucinating Nonexistent Medical Issues During Appointments With Patients
+ Weight-Loss Drugs May Have Surprising Side Effect: Stalling Cancer
+ Surgeon general’s office issues warning on screen time for children
+ Ontario man dies of MAID after being assessed outside Tim Hortons
+ Residents burn an Ebola treatment center in Congo as anger grows over the outbreak
+++ MORE +++

[Benjamin Parviz @parvizbd]

I was on The Coffee Hour today on @KFUOradio talking about physician-assisted suicide. This conversation happened because I wrote "Making Physician-Assisted Suicide Unthinkable" for Intersections by @BioethicsCenter. Links below.

https://t.co/cmfE2pIRWx

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

Bored in a Digital Age
https://t.co/M6cIlzXNuj

Boredom is not merely neutral but potentially generative: It is the gateway to mind-wandering, the cognitive state in which the brain forms new connections, solves problems, and generates creative ideas. On this account, the real danger of the digital age is not boredom itself but our refusal to tolerate it. We have a self-defeating habit of reaching for the phone at the first twinge of discomfort, crowding out the very mental space in which our best thinking happens.
-------
Dr. Jonathan Lett is Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Faith, Science, and Technology Initiative at LeTourneau University. His teaching and research sit at the intersection of Christian doctrine, moral philosophy, and technology, and are animated by a pressing question: What does it mean to be human in a world being rapidly reshaped by technology?

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

Are you attending the Colson Center National Conference in Knoxville this week? Drop a comment below or send us a DM. Dr. Eppinette would love to meet up with you there!

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

The BIOETHICS WEEKLY
+ Trusted National Voice
+ CBHD Research Library
+ 2026 Summer Conference
https://t.co/6mJMXlOxe7

+ The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam
+ Inside the Race to Develop a Test for the Rare Andes Hantavirus
+ Tick bites surge, sending many to ER. Maps show where.
+ Could this synthetic egg bring back extinct birds? Researchers urge caution
+ Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing
+++ MORE +++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

The CBHD Research Library is being set up in the LeTourneau University library this week!

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

In the BIOETHICS WEEKLY
INTERSECTIONS: Making Physician-Assisted Suicide Unthinkable
https://t.co/6a0QJQtK2C

The New Wild West of AI Kids’ Toys
Google Says Criminal Hackers Used A.I. to Find a Major Software Flaw
A crisis of conscience spurred this Christian IVF doctor’s career pivot
Nurse AI adoption lags behind doctors: survey
Silicon Valley Wants to Put a Chip in Your Brain
+++ MORE +++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

How do I get to CBHD's 2026 Annual Conference?
https://t.co/cMacYi9R3z

Drive
+ Longview is an easy drive from many locations in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.
‍
Fly and Drive
+ East Texas Regional Airport (7 miles from campus)
+ Shreveport, Louisiana (56 miles from campus)
+ DFW (150 miles)
+ Love Field, Dallas (139 miles)
+ Bush Intercontinental, Houston (191 miles)
+ Hobby, Houston (215 miles)

Train
+ Amtrak (2.2 miles from campus)

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

Making Physician-Assisted Suicide Unthinkable
by Benjamin Parviz, PhD (cand.)
https://t.co/z72kZVMuEs

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is now legally available in 13 U.S. states and Washington, DC, and to the more than 100 million residents of those jurisdictions. Following the removal of residency requirements from eligibility criteria in Oregon and Vermont in 2023, anyone who has the means to travel to those states can potentially receive PAS. More pointedly, all of your parishioners or fellow congregation members who could qualify can now receive PAS, regardless of which state your church is in. Till now, Christians have resisted PAS by working to keep it illegal or to slow its political and legal advance. Christians must reconsider what continued Christian resistance to PAS looks like.

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: The Challenge of Pastoral Leadership Today: What Is Our Technological Age Doing to Us?
https://t.co/7gXokRxuhC

If we are going to properly discern and embrace what God wants for us, that is, if we are going to be faithful to our vocation—if we are going to be the humans that God has made us to be—then we must also pay attention to the ways in which our age is actively shaping our habits and assumptions about the good life and what it means to be human. In other words, we are compelled to contemplate not only What is the will of God? but also What are we being conformed to? This, I suggest, is one of the most urgent tasks and challenges of pastoral leadership and care today—helping our congregations become more attuned to what our technological age is doing to us.

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

The Bioethics MONTHLY:
+ Dementia, Grandpa Hoy, and the Truth of Our Personhood
+ Join Us in Longview or Online—There Is No Wrong Way to Attend!
+ Manufactured Loneliness
https://t.co/5QQnY6k0dt

+ Number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions increasing, study says
+ A woman’s uterus has been kept alive outside the body for the first time
+ Can AI be a ‘child of God’? Inside Anthropic’s meeting with Christian leaders.
+++ MORE +++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

SURVEY OPPORTUNITY: Spiritual Practices in a Digital Age: The Pursuit of Spiritual Fulfillment
https://t.co/pErtLZA3mw

Volunteers Needed for Research
Are you interested in reflecting on how your digital life connects with your spiritual practices?

Faculty and Staff from LeTourneau University’s Faith, Science, and Technology Initiative and Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity are conducting a study exploring how digital practices intersect with spiritual life and how this contributes to a sense of spiritual fulfillment.

What's Involved?
1. Complete an anonymous online survey
2. Reflect on your pursuit of spiritual fulfillment, spiritual practices, and use of digital technology via open-ended questions
3. Estimated time: 20 minutes
4. Participants may volunteer for an online or in-person focus group after completion

Ready to Dive In?
+ If you’re interested in participating, please follow the survey link https://t.co/pErtLZA3mw
+ Researchers on this project include Jonathan Lett, Matthew Eppinette, and Anna Vollema. For more information, or to volunteer for a focus group, contact CBHD Research Scholar, Anna Vollema:
++ Email: [email protected]
++ Phone: [phone]

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

The BIOETHICS WEEKLY
+ Dementia, Grandpa Hoy, and the Truth of Our Personhood
+ Confirmed Speakers for our Summer Conference
https://t.co/InpXbtF9WN

+ For Dementia Patients, AI Can Be a Good, Non-Judgmental Listener
+ A ‘Barbaric’ Problem in American Hospitals Is Only Getting Bigger
+ Whistleblower Pushes to Regulate Controversial Organ Retrieval Technique
+++ MORE +++

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

New Intersections: "Dementia, Grandpa Hoy, and the Truth of Our Personhood"
by Michael McGinnis, PhD, PE
https://t.co/OCB3CXr3sV

The experience made me think harder about what it means to be made in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27), to truly be imago Dei. What does Christian theology have to say about diminishment, loss, and dignity?

Michael McGinnis, PhD, PE is Dean of Engineering and Engineering Technology at LeTourneau University. He has published extensively on engineering formation, with recent work nominated for Best Paper at the 2024 Christian Engineering Conference. He writes Stories from a t-Shaped Engineer, a Substack exploring engineering, vocation, and Christian formation, and recently published The t-Shaped Engineer in the Age of AI. His work integrates technical depth, relational wisdom, and theological reflection.

“Shared Convictions: CBHD and LeTourneau on Mission” is a new series introducing CBHD's partnership with LeTourneau University. Each piece highlights a different LeTourneau faculty or staff and will evidence the shared mission to produce theologically rich and biblically grounded explorations of key issues at the intersection of faith, science, and technology.

[The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity @BioethicsCenter]

This WEEKLY:
+ Trio of Articles on The Ethics of Brain-Computer Interface Devices
+ Summer Conference: Join Us in Longview or Online—There Is No Wrong Way to Attend!
https://t.co/E4ZSYtniK0

+ Researchers eye potential Down syndrome fix via advanced gene editing
+ Pancreatic cancer mRNA vaccine shows lasting results in an early trial
+ AI doom warnings are getting louder. Are they realistic?
+ The Marijuana Backlash Is Here
+++ MORE +++