Follow the links below to read New York Times news items that are related to the contemporary moral issues covered in chapters 8 through 16 in Doing Ethics. 

Abortion | Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide | Capital Punishment | Pornography | Censorship | Affirmative Action | Equal Educational Opportunities | Environment | Animals | War Crimes | US Armament and Defense | Terrorism

Abortion

Jean Pakter, Women’s Health Advocate in New York, Dies at 101 As head of the city’s maternity services bureau, Ms. Pakter supported a law that legalized abortion in New York before Roe v. Wade, and her research led to a new standard of care for premature babies.

Is the Church Becoming Less Catholic? Sampling the responses to a column by Maureen Dowd.

Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide

At Mary Kennedy’s Funeral, Mourners Remember Her Generosity Mary Kennedy, the wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was remembered in Bedford, N.Y., as a woman who had almost boundless gifts even as she struggled with demons.

Honoring the Neighbors’ Basset Hound — Social Q’s What to do when your neighbors invite you to a funeral for their dog, how to remedy accidentally spamming acquaintances with LinkedIn invitations and disclosing the cost of a meal to a spouse.

Capital Punishment

China: Tycoon Gets Reprieve A self-made tycoon sentenced to death for financial fraud has been resentenced to death with a two-year reprieve, meaning her sentence will probably be changed to life after two years of good behavior.

Malaysia: Mexicans Sentenced to Death A court convicted three Mexican brothers and two other people on Thursday and sentenced them to be hanged for drug trafficking.

Pornography

The Day Obscenity Became Art Celebrating 50 years of the “interchange of ideas” in D. H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

Lights, Camera, Lots of Action. Forget the Script. With pornographic movies being sold online in chunks, moviemakers are now even less interested in story lines.

Censorship

The Value of Opera Reviews An Opera Guild member says Metropolitan Opera officials should listen to critics.

At the Ethiopian News Agency, Hope for Freer Journalism The Ethiopian News Agency is planning a 24-7 TV news channel in four languages — if it earns government approval.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action A reader says the program should be based on disadvantage, not ancestry.

Beyond Affirmative Action The Council for Opportunity in Education discusses how colleges can increase diversity.

Equal Educational Opportunities

College Affirmative Action Policies Change With Laws History shows that when courts or new laws restrict affirmative action, colleges try to find other ways to increase minority admissions.

Black at Stuyvesant High — One Girl’s Experience Rudi-Ann Miller is one of 40 blacks among the 3,295 students at New York’s Stuyvesant High School. The experience can be isolating, but she has had no regrets.

Environment

How to Stop Wildlife Poachers Guards patrol museums to secure our cultural heritage. We should take the same approach to safeguarding our natural heritage.

The Danger Downwind of Chemical Plants The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to impose new chemical safety rules. President Obama can make it happen.

Animals

How to Stop Wildlife Poachers Guards patrol museums to secure our cultural heritage. We should take the same approach to safeguarding our natural heritage.

Eat Your Hake and Have It, Too We can harvest a certain fraction of a fish population that has been overfished, if we allow for the natural processes of birth and growth to rebuild the stock.

War Crimes

The Netherlands: Mladic Trial Reset The trial of a former Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladic, that opened in The Hague on May 16 will now resume on June 25 instead of next Tuesday as originally planned.

Mauritania: Qaddafi’s Former Spy Chief Is Indicted Abdullah al-Senussi, who ran Libya’s extensive spy network, was indicted Monday for “illegally entering Mauritania using false identity documents,” a judicial official said.

US Armament and Defense

U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan The Department of Defense recently confirmed the deaths of the following Americans.

‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’ Courts the Military Publicists for 20th Century Fox are using promotional events with the armed services to attract attention for “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which opens in June.

Terrorism

The Danger Downwind of Chemical Plants The Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to impose new chemical safety rules. President Obama can make it happen.

Andrew Smulian, Star Witness Against Viktor Bout, Gets 5 Years in Prison Though he faced a minimum 25 years in prison, Andrew Smulian, a government witness against the Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, got five years.

» Back to Top