bioethics

Other Definitions
bioethics (dict)

Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine.

Definition and scope

Bioethics concerns the relationships between biology, medicine, cybernetics, politics, law, ethics, philosophy, and theology. Disagreement exists about the proper scope for the application of ethical evaluation to questions involving biology. Some bioethicists would narrow ethical evaluation only to the morality of medical treatments or technological innovations, and the timing of medical treatment of humans. Other bioethicists would broaden the scope of ethical evaluation to include the morality of all actions that might help or harm organisms capable of feeling fear and pain. Bioethics involve many public policy questions that may be politicized-used to mobilize political constituencies-in much the same way that reproductive rights have been exploited by the Christian right.

Issues

Bioethics issues include:

Abortion, reproductive rights
Artificial insemination
Artificial life
Biopiracy
Circumcision
Confidentiality of medical records and their abuse in interrogation of prisoners
Contraception
Cloning
Cryogenics
Direct mind-computer interface
Donating one's sperm or eggs
Donated organs when bought illegally (transplant trade)
Fair allocation of donated organs, class and race biases
Drug pricing, HIV/AIDs drugs in Sub-Saharan Africa
Genetic engineering, genetically modified food crops
Genomics
Homosexuality
Human cloning
Medical torture
Non-human animal cloning
Immortality
Treating infertility
Obligations of the individual, corporate employer, local, sub-national or national state and global community to provide health care and/or health insurance.
Primate rights under law
Stem cell cloning
Suicide, assisted suicide and human euthanasia
Non-human animal euthanasia
Pain management
Parthenogenesis
Population control
Recreational drug use
Scientific ignorance
Selling one's own blood or blood plasma
Spiritual drug use
Transexuality
When to use, and when to withhold, life-support
When to use, and when to withhold, artificial hydration and artificial nutrition
Use of surrogate mothers
Use of nanotechnology as medical treatment
Use of artificial wombs
Treating non-human animals
Medical research on non-human animals

Bioethicists focus on using philosophy to help analyze said concerns. Religious bioethicists have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within the viewpoint of their respective faiths. Some secular bioethicists are critical to the fact that these are usually religious scholars without a degree in biology or medicine related fields. Most religious bioethicists are Jewish or Christian scholars. However a small number of religious scholars from other religions have recently become involved in this field as well. Islamic clerics have begun to write on this topic. Muslim bioethicists include Abdulaziz Sachedina, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There has been some criticism by liberal Muslims that only the more religiously conservative voices in Islam are being heard on this issue. Buddhist bioethicists have focused much of their concern on organ transplantation.

References (general)

Orr, Robert D. and Leigh B. Genesen. Requests for inappropriate treatment based on religious beliefs in Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 23, 1997. pp. 142-147.
Potter, Van Rensselaer. (1971). Bioethics: Bridge to the Future. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. ASIN 0130765058
Potter, Van Rensselaer. (1988). Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy. East Lansing. Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0870132644
Sloan, R.P., E. Bagiella and T. Powlell. Religion, spirituality, and medicine, The Lancet, 1999, 353(9153): 1-7.
Stevin, Peter and Joe Stevens, Detainees' Medical Files Shared Guantanamo Interrogators' Access Criticized Washington Post June 10, 2004, Page A01
Thomas, John. Where Religious and Secular Ethics Meet in Humane Health Care International, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1996.

Muslim bioethics

Al Khayat MH. Health and Islamic behaviour. In: El Gindy AR, editor. Health policy, ethics and human values: Islamic perspective Kuwait: Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences; 1995. p. 447-50.

Ebrahim, Abul Fadl Mohsin. Abortion, Birth Control and Surrogate Parenting. An Islamic Perspective Indianapolis, 1989
Esposito, John. Ed. Surrogate Motherhood in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
An Unholy Alliance: Muslims have diverse views on scientific ethics, yet only the conservatives are heard. And a Muslim-Vatican deal is not helping. Ehsan Masood, New Scientist Vol. 180, Issue 2419 (November 1, 2003).

Jewish Bioethics

Bleich, J. David. 1981. Judaism and Healing. New York: Ktav
Dorff, Elliot N. 1998. Matters of Life and Death: A Jewish Approach to Modern Medical Ethics. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society
Feldman DM. Marital relations, birth control, and abortion in Jewish law. New York: Schocken Books; 1974
Freedman B. Duty and healing: foundations of a Jewish bioethic. New York: Routledge; 1999
Jakobovits I. Jewish medical ethics. New York: Bloch Publishing; 1959
Life & Death Responsibilities in Jewish Biomedical Ethics, Ed. Aaron L. Mackler, JTS, 2000
Maibaum M. A "progressive" Jewish medical ethics: notes for an agenda. Journal of Reform Judaism 1986;33(3):27-33.
Rosner, Fred Modern medicine and Jewish ethics New York: Yeshiva University Press; 1986
Conservative Judaism Vol. 54(3), Spring 2002 (Contains a set of six articles on bioethics)
Zohar, Noam J. 1997. Alternatives in Jewish Bioethics. Albany: State University of New York Press