Explain, discuss and evaluate a topic in bio-ethics including the teachings of the three world religions regarding it 

Bio-ethics is the ethical and philosophical implications of biological and medical procedures in which wider societal implications are considered. All three of the world’s major religions have distinct teachings on both abortion and euthanasia which are just two key controversial topics in modern day which are hotly argued about. Euthanasia is the process of suicide in which you are prescribed a life-ending drug by your doctor whereas abortion is the legal ending of a baby’s life decided by the mother. 

It could be argued that Euthanasia is a necessary evil in order to relieve somebody from immense pain and suffering and therefore in today’s society we should make effective use of the advancements in the contemporary medical field in order to do the right thing and help end somebody who suffers a poor quality of life. However others may argue that we should be using such advancements to save life rather than end it as it is the morally right thing to do. Although the Christian religion teaches us to be compassionate towards the sick and elderly, as Jesus often did in the bible, it is heavily advocated that life is a precious gift from God and we cannot decide when to end it, we must live our life as god planned it and leave him to judge when it must end, otherwise we may be disrupting the natural and spiritual process that Christians believe death to be. No one has the right to judge the quality of another life as all life is of equal quality and therefore any increase in euthanasia in modern day may reflect the devaluation of life, making death more commonly accepted. 

This is certainly the case in Holland where there is a slippery slope in regards the principle of the value of life as attitude towards euthanasia is very lenient and overall it is becoming more and more commonly accepted. Children as young as 12 are viable for euthanasia whilst 75-90% of cancer patients opt for it and 42 psychiatric patients were given it.. Laws are meant to be 'good' so euthanasia being legal 'numbs' the conscience but it is only making death easier and thereby slowly degrading the value of human life. There are many implications in society to be considered bio-ethically as well what with the negative impact on the patient's family and the idea that euthanasia only gets rid of the sufferer but not the suffering. 

Despite this there are still many advocators of euthanasia who may argue that patients were a burden on the people around them, for example those who require 24/7 care. It is then their own choice, the utilization of their own free will to make a decision on their own life if they want euthanasia and no one should be able to take that choice away from them otherwise it would be breaching their human rights. However an argument against this would be that an individual may feel pressured into euthanasia if they feel like a burden meanwhile you can never be too sure when the next medical break through will arrival which may well save that person's life. Judaism is another major religion heavily against euthanasia as they believe that there are no exceptions to their anti-euthanasia law even if the person concerned wants to die. 

This is because Jewish people believe the value of human life is infinite and one must struggle until his last breath. In Judges 9:53-54 King David had a soldier executed after he aided in euthanasia to show that it was no different from murder. 

Similar to Judaism and indeed Christianity is Islamic teachings which also regards human life as sacred, believing that we should not interfere with the workings of Allah who has gifted us life 'And no person can ever die except by Allah's leave and at an appointed term' (Qur'an 16:61). However the Islamic code of medical ethics states 'it is futile to diligently keep the patient in a vegetative state by heroic means... It is the process of life that doctors aim to maintain and not the process of dying'. Therefore, unlike Judaism, there are some exceptions when it comes to euthanasia and some form of leniency but in most cases, they were wholly disagree with the supposed pros of euthanasia. 

Abortion is another controversial topic for discussion even amongst the three major world religions. People who argue for abortion might say that women have the rights to their own body and should have the freedom to do what they want with it whilst they might also point out that the woman had been raped, which means that it was not conceived in the proper way religions teach it should be and therefor abortion is acceptable. However the Roman Catholic Church teaches that abortion is gravely immoral as it is not dissimilar from murder. This is because its believed that life begins during the early fertilization period of the pregnancy as this is the starting point for life to grow, a human being with potential rather than potential for a human being whereas others may argue that life only begins when the baby is actually born and so it would only be killing an embryo rather than a baby. 

However this is heavily defeated by the fact that 9.7% of babies in the UK are aborted whilst alive with a total of 1200 in America. Babies are subsequently left to die even after living for up to 12 hours or they're burned, which completely contradicts the role of a doctor which is to save life, not to destroy it. Meanwhile 1.6% of abortions take place after the 24 week period where the baby is pretty much fully formed. An example could be baby twins who were born at just 22 weeks but still survived and grew up healthily, showing that abortion, in many cases, is the clear murder of an infant child. Other arguments against abortion consist of the damaging psychological effect it can have on the mother and the amount of cases where women were glad they kept the baby. There has also been research which proves that babies can memories music, showing that its not ok to inflict pain because their brain is active.. 

On the other hand, abortion might be acceptable if the mother's life is at risk and there are numerous medical implications that might over ride societal implications. This is somewhat supported by the church of England which recognizes that there are conditions where abortion may be morally preferable to any other alternative.  

This is similar to the teachings of Islam. The Qu'Ran does not explicitly refer to abortion and so schools of Muslim law permit early abortion in certain cases but is otherwise wrong due to their belief in the 'sanctity of life', 'whosoever has spared the life of a soul, it is as though he has spared the life of all people', which shows that whether it is a baby's or an adult's life, all life is equal. 

evaluation

Evaluation from steve98bc

The first three links are faulty and do not work for an unknown reason, these are the links:
first link: 
http://stevesasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2014-09-21T21:37:00%2B01:00&max-results=7&start=56&by-date=false

second link: 
http://stevesasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/drafting-and-planning-codes-and.html

third link: 
http://stevesasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/drafting-and-planning_5.htmlfc

drafting and planning

This is the improved version of my contents page for my magazine.

I kept the same layout because i think it is unique but is just as coherent as other contents page's however i have extended the room for sub headings by minimising the size of the text describing the exclusive interviews. This is to contemplate for the amount of content a weekly magazine like mine should have. a long with the content that i have now filled in, i have also included simple black lines to separate each feature as well as individual page numbers, a common convention that directs the readers to exactly where they want to go to read about that particular feature.

The six sub-headings i used are the most common categories amongst magazines like NME and Q so i remained consistent with their style by including similar categories in distinct red sub-headings which separates each category of content into a neat coherent.

I also kept all of the fonts the same because they comply well with simple and coherent style of my contents page.

drafting and planning

This is my improved double page spread.

The first thing i changed was the size of the font, because like my front cover, it needs to be smaller if it is to be more realistic especially if its meant to be an article, which usually have small text.
I then added an introduction beneath the band name and above the article. This directly links the band's name with the questions being asked them and so it eases the readers into the article so they know exactly what they're reading about. I made it bold so that its distinctly and introduction which attracts the readers attention and then lures them in to reading the article as it gives an insight into what they can expect to find.
I also added another red box, much larger than the sub-headings, which is promoting my magazine's website www.ignite.com where readers can find a 'sneak peak' at my band's new album. This is a typical convention of music magazines, including NME who have their own website, because its common for magazines to advertise their website and the special digital content that they ahev that cannot come with a magazine.

drafting and planning

This is my improved front cover for my magazine and i am more pleased with this version than i am with the previous version because of the improvements that i made which makes it more realistic.

Firstly, i changed the font size of the anchorage text that accompanies the cover lines because these should be much smaller than the main cover line and overall helps create a more realistic scale to a music magazine. I also added another cover line to fill the negative space left by shrinking the font size.

secondly i changed the pug because its rare that a magazine like NME would advertise posters so i changed it to tickets for 'Glasto' an abbreviation of a festival that my target audience would understand and therefore be more interested in because they are mostly of a young demographic who use abbreviations frequently.

Thirdly i changed some of the featured bands like example because looking back, i don't think David Guetta was too realistic for an NME styled magazine but i think example fits well.

Finally i added an appropriate dateline and price in the top right hand corner above the masthead as this is a conventional location for a dateline, particularly in NME and i made it a realistic size so that it does not attract attention away from the masthead. I also altered the colour of the main cover line so that it matched better with the cover lines and masthead

target audience

I think i was able to target my audience effectively through my double page spread article through a number of ways. I was able to target my magazines young demographic by having the simple, easy to read sub-headings which provides clarity because they separate out the answers and makes it easier for them to identify what question and its corresponding answer that they are most interested in reading about. This is effective as teenagers and young people in general have short attention spans so using red sub-headings makes it easier for them to read and identify and so will become more attracted to this magazine.

I also targeted my magazines audience by including interesting questions that they would want to see asked to new and upcoming bands, as the questions reveal information about the band that they wouldn't have known before and they might be interested to know the life and story behind a new, hot band who they could relate to and potentially become a fan of.

I was able to target my band's target audience through the response of the band itself. Using words like f*****, mental and vodka, adds to the explicit nature of the band which is intriguing to indie rock fans as a lot of indie rock bands are open and explicit in their approach as its seen as rebellious and cool and so therefore indie rock fans would be more enticed to read about my band because they adopt the same cool, explicit approach. I further targeted my band's target audience by including vital information about my band. This would intrigue them as any indie rock fans who like the look of the band but don't know who they are would probably want to find out about their background, their opinions and their album so that they can get to know the band and maybe become and this would be particularly effective with any indie rock enthusiasts who are looking for cool, new indie rock bands to follow. My magazine gives them this opportunity as they feature the newest and hottest bands from all music genres and my band through their attitude, their opinions and their explicit nature help target their audience as well.

Research into similar products

As is evident in the above images and in most copies of NME, the date line and price are consistently the same, i have decided to research deeper into this as it was one of my improvements for my magazine and its one small yet significant element of a music magazine that cannot be over looked.

New NME magazines come out each week and therefore i shouldn't produce a magazine which comes out monthly like Q, this is important as the level of content is significantly higher in monthly issues than than that of weekly issues so therefore my magazine, 'ignite' should have a specific dateline like '1 February 2015' like NME.

This also effects the price, a monthly magazine averages at around £4 whereas in weekly magazines are much less like NME and their standard price of £2.30 and so i shall use a similar price.

The location of the dateline and price is always in the same place on nme front covers, in the top left hand corner above the masthead. There is an appropriate place on my magazine in which i could place my dateline and price but i must also ensure that it is of a small size so that it doesn't attract much attention away from the most important front cover elements like the masthead and therefore my magazine will also comply better with the style of NME magazines and its conventions.

NME magazine also includes a URL to their website, in small print in their barcode, so there is another element to consider but maybe not one as significant as the dateline and price. I may include a URL to my magazine's website in my DPS to advertise digital content in relation to my featured band the Desperados especially since they talk about their new album within the article so that could be the focus of the digital content on my magazine's website