Ethics Big and Small, Thinking Fast and Slow

In the Hastings Center Report's July-August 2022 issue, articles by Jessica Amalraj and Kavita Shah Arora and by Inmaculada de Melo-Martín take up very different concerns under the broad topic of reproductive ethics and public policy. Amalraj and Arora call for public deliberation and consensus building to revise a Medicaid sterilization policy, and de Melo-Martín argues that social resources should not be used to support reproductive embryo editing but should instead be put toward pre- and postnatal interventions that, compared to embryonic genome editing, can help far more people have children who are healthy and genetically related to them. The third article, by Bryan Sisk and James M. DuBois, offers a framework to guide clinicians in their everyday communication with patients and their family members. Elsewhere in the issue are arguments about the responsibilities health care organizations have to address large societal problems affecting well-being.