Sex, Drugs, and a Few Other Things

Excerpt

Bioethical content has a leaning towards the takings off and landings of life, alpha to omega, coming into the world and leaving it: the transitions. Transitions are often the most vulnerable times for journeys, as is the case in aviation, and bioethics is very much a giant mediation on our individual and collective vulnerabilities and a forum for exploration of difference and therefore also often, fear. Just as comedy deals with things we find hard to talk about, so “standup” bioethics seeks to shine a light into what is thought and done in the penumbra of life. A conference speaker once showed a cartoon of sperm and ovaries on a tombstone to make this point. In this issue we live up to that caricature. Politics also exists to deal with difference, and hence it is reasonable to ally bioethics with biopolitics, as our guest editor does in the title of this issue’s symposium. …