Pending actually reading the new rules, we are generally optimistic. We think they have adopted almost everything that the Assembly of Scientists says the rules should have.

The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

The assumption should be that we will not appear in print or the blogosphere. Having dinner should not be fodder for Facebook. And this is just as true for 'public personalities' as it is for the average person. After all, even people in the public eye have a right to a private life.

Americans tend to endorse the use of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia when the question is abstract and hypothetical.

Reasoning based on cost has been strenuously resisted; it violated the Hippocratic Oath, was associated with rationing, and derided as putting a price on life... Indeed, many physicians were willing to lie to get patients what they needed from insurance companies that were trying to hold down costs.

There's nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, in trying to bend every child to match a one-size-fits-all notion of what it means to be a boy or girl of a specific age. Better to set a few parameters and then go with the flow. Call it 'jazz parenting.'