Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

🩺 There are currently 12 million Americans who are caring for loved ones suffering from dementia. Caring for a loved one with dementia is incredibly complex because the caregiver is left to balance between their own needs and the wishes of the loved one they are caring for.

💡Sophia Soto ’27 is a Public Health major with minors in biology and Art History, and she is a 2025-26 health care ethics intern at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. In her new article “Who Cares for the Caregiver?” she explores caregiver fatigue and the invisible labors they face.

“A caregiver wants to honor the wishes expressed when their loved one was lucid. However, no one can truly understand the toll that caring for someone with dementia will take until they experience it firsthand. This question is about who holds the duty of care for caregivers.”

🔗Read Soto’s full article below.

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/healthcare-ethics-blog/who-cares-for-the-caregiver--ethical-considerations-of-caregiver-fatigue/

A recent report by Next 10, led by researchers Iris Stewart-Frey and Irina Raicu at Santa Clara University, finds that data centers are expanding into water-stressed, vulnerable communities across California.

California has the opportunity to align data center growth with its climate, water, and environmental justice goals — but it requires stronger transparency and integrated planning.

Join Next 10 and Santa Clara University at 11 a.m. PDT Thursday June 11 for a webinar with report authors, Stewart-Frey and Irina Raicu, to discuss the report's key findings, implications, and recommendations for policymakers, local governments, and data center facilities.

Registration Link in first comment.

🩺 The Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization returned abortion policy to the states, creating a patchwork of total bans and gestational limits. Extremes in abortion policy raise serious ethical concerns, but a partial framework with clear gestational limits offers a more balanced approach that better supports justice and the common good.

💡Megan Baldemor is a biology major with minors in chemistry and medical & health humanities and she is a 2025-26 health care ethics intern at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. In her new article “Bridging Extremes: Rethinking Abortion Policy in a Post-Dobbs Era” she explores what the post-Dobbs era looks like and means for the common good.

“The post-Dobbs era is unsettled and uncertain. The decision by the Supreme Court to allow mifepristone by telehealth underscores the importance of consistent regulatory frameworks. A partial policy is not a perfect resolution, but a durable one. It reaches across the political divide to reduce harm, improve legal and medical clarity, and protect both autonomy and vulnerable life.”

🔗Read Baldemor’s full article below.

scu.edu/ethics/healthcare-ethics-blog/bridging-extremes-rethinking-abortion-policy-in-a-post-dobbs-era/

Ethics Rights -Dobbs

A new report is raising important questions about transparency and community impact as data center development accelerates across California.

Irina Raicu, director of internet ethics, said to The Desert Review on the study's core message: the goal isn't to stop building data centers, but to ensure that developers and policymakers give communities the information they need to understand what is coming to their neighborhoods.

The report highlights how generative AI and hyperscale facilities draw on water resources across their entire supply chains, with particularly serious implications for California's already fragile water system.

Accountability starts with data.

Read the full story at the link in the first comment.

🧑‍🌾The people who sustain the nation’s food supply experience resource insecurity and increased chronic disease risk while facing significant barriers to healthcare access. California immigrant farmworkers work long hours, are paid very little, and have limited access to basic resources.

💡Sophia Irinco ’26 is an ethnic studies major with a minor in biology and a 2025-26 health care ethics intern at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. In her new article “Harvesting Harm Resource Insecurity and Immigrant Farmworker Health” she explores the systemic barriers farmworkers face and the ethical responsibility to address them.

“When viewed through a lens of justice, it becomes clear that a society that depends on farmworkers for survival also carries a responsibility to protect their health and dignity. Addressing these inequities through fair labor protections, safer environmental regulations, and expanded access to healthcare is an ethical obligation that falls on policy makers, the agricultural industry, and the healthcare industry.”

🔗Read Irinco’s full article below.

https://www.scu.edu/ethics/healthcare-ethics-blog/harvesting-harm-resource-insecurity-and-immigrant-farmworker-health/

🤝 President Trump’s Truth Social platform announced last year that it was partnering with Crypto.com to bring prediction markets to the social media site. Davina Hurt, director of government ethics, speaks to The Hill about how this overlap can raise questions about conflict of interest and emphasizes the importance of guidelines in the growing prediction market space.

💵 “A president using the public power of the office to shape a regulatory outcome that directly benefits his son’s financial interests is, at minimum, a profound conflict-of-interest concern,” says Hurt.

🔗 Access the full article at the link in the first comment! 👇

Rebranded as “prediction markets”—platforms where people trade on the likelihood of future events—this form of betting has moved beyond sports into elections, climate disasters, and geopolitical conflicts.

In her recent essay, "The Viability Trap: How Prediction Markets Distort Elections Before Voting Begins," Davina Hurt, Ethics Center director, government ethics, writes:

"Nobody looks at Kentucky Derby odds and concludes certain horses shouldn’t run. But in political markets, candidates without existing financial or media advantages can be quietly sidelined—not because voters rejected them, but because they were never fully considered.

This is what we might call the viability trap: candidates don’t lose because voters decide against them—they struggle to gain traction because markets signal they are unlikely to win before voters fully engage. That perception can become self-reinforcing, shaping coverage, fundraising, and ultimately the range of choices voters believe are realistic."

Hurt says perceptions of viability are increasingly mediated by markets rather than voters.

Recognizing the problem helps. Where are we seeing this type of market manipulation and what are strategies we have for preserving our democracy as voters?

Access the full article in link in the first comment.

📃As Pope Leo XIV's landmark encyclical on artificial intelligence, Brian Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, has been featured in multiple national and international news outlets discussing the ethical opportunities and challenges presented by AI.

Coverage from NPR, National Catholic Reporter, and The New York Times examines the Vatican's growing engagement with artificial intelligence, and the role ethical reflection can play in shaping its future.

✍️ "This is a landmark opportunity," Green told NPR, describing the encyclical as a chance for society to consider how AI can be developed in service of humanity.

✍️ Green also stressed the importance of broad collaboration and dialogue in ensuring AI advances responsibly and reflects shared human values.

✍️Green told the New York Times the church is urging other institutions to “recognize and promote whatever serves the dignity of persons, the vitality of communities and the common good.”

🔗Read more through our Media Mentions page. Link in the first comment.

How much water do California's data centers actually use? According to a new report from Next10, we barely know. Irina Raicu, director of internet ethics, was part of the team behind the research, which found that planned data centers are putting pressure on already-scarce water supplies across California's Central and Imperial Valleys.

"We have this huge build out, and we have very little data," Raicu said, adding that without stronger oversight, these facilities could be sold to communities with real needs, with the water costs going unaddressed.

Read the full story at the link in the first comment.

The release of Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On the Protection of Human Dignity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” prompted an interdisciplinary discussion at Santa Clara University to discuss the Pope’s call to “disarm” artificial intelligence and place human dignity at the center of innovation.

Ethics Center staff and scholars joined panel moderator, Matthew Gaudet, director of ethics programs for the Santa Clara University's School of Engineering; a member of the Vatican’s AI Research Group; and Ethics Center faculty scholar, to explore ethical dilemmas that surface around AI.

Panelists:

Ethics Center Director of Technology Ethics Brian Green
Ethics Center Senior Director, Leadership Ethics Ann Gregg S***t
Ahmed Amer, associate professor of computer science and engineering and Ethics Center faculty scholar
Julie Hanlon Rubio, Shea-Huesman Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University
Nicholas Hayes-Mota, assistant professor of social and theological ethics

Are we building Babel or Jerusalem? Santa Clara scholars respond to the Pope’s challenge to ‘disarm’ AI As fears about AI’s impact on jobs, democracy, and human dignity mount, Pope Leo XIV calls the world to choose a different path.