Bioethics

Bioethics is the study of the ethical controversies brought about by advances

in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in
the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law,
and philosophy. Originally a focus of philosophical thought, scholars today use not only
philosophy but narrative, mediation techniques and a variety of means to illuminate
questions in bioethics.

History
Terminology
The term Bioethics (Greek bios, life; ethos, behavior) was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr, who
"anticipated many of the arguments and discussions now current in biological
researchinvolving animals" in an article about the "bioethical imperative," as he called it,
regarding the scientific use of animals and plants.Lolas, F. (2008). Bioethics and animal
research: A personal perspective and a note on the contribution of Fritz Jahr. Fritz Jahr's
1927 concept of bioethics. Kennedy Inst Ethics J, In 1970, the American biochemist Van
Rensselaer Potteralso used the term with a broader meaning including solidarity towards
the biosphere, thus generating a "global ethics," a discipline representing a link between
biology, ecology, medicine and human values in order to attain the survival of both human
beings and other animal species.
Development of a discipline

Although bioethical issues have been debated since ancient times, and public attention
briefly focused on the role of human subjects in biomedical experiments following the
revelation of Nazi experiments conducted during World War II, the modern field of bioethics
first emerged as an academic discipline in Anglophone societies in the 1960s.
Technological advances in such diverse areas as organ transplantation and end-of-life care,
including the development of kidney dialysis and respirators, posed novel questions
regarding when and how care might be withdrawn. Furthermore, as philosophy in Britain
and elsewhere moved away from the influences of logical positivism and emotivism, the
development of theories of ethics and their application to practical problems gained in
interest. These questions were often discussed by philosophers and religious scholars; in
England, there were notable contributions from GEM Anscombe and RM Hare. By the
1970s, bioethical think tanks and academic bioethics programs had emerged. Among the
earliest such institutions were the Hastings Center (originally known as The Institute of
Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences), founded in 1969 by philosopher Daniel Callahan and
psychiatrist Willard Gaylin, and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, established at Georgetown
University in 1971. The publication of Principles of Biomedical Ethics by James F.
Childress and Tom Beauchamp—the first American textbook of bioethics—marked a
transformative moment in the discipline.

During the subsequent three decades, bioethical issues gained widespread attention
through the court cases surrounding the deaths of Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy
Cruzan and Terri Schiavo. The field developed its own cadre of widely-known advocates,
such as Al Jonsen at the University of Washington, John C Fletcher at the University of
Virginia, Jacob M. Appel at Brown University, Ruth Faden at Johns Hopkins University,
and Arthur Caplan at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1995,
President Bill Clinton established the President's Council on Bioethics, a sign that the field
had finally reached maturity and acceptance in the United States of America.
President George W. Bush also relied upon a Council on Bioethics in rendering decisions in
areas such as the public funding of embryonic stem-cell research
Purpose and scope
The field of bioethics has addressed a broad swath of human inquiry, ranging from debates
over the boundaries of life (e.g. abortion, euthanasia),Surrogacy to the allocation of scarce
health care resources (e.g. organ donation, health care rationing) to the right to turn down
medical care for religious or cultural reasons. Bioethicists often disagree among themselves
over the precise limits of their discipline, debating whether the field should concern itself
with the ethical evaluation of all questions involving biology and medicine, or only a subset
of these questions. Some bioethicists would narrow ethical evaluation only to the morality of
medical treatments or technological innovations, and the timing of medical treatment of
humans. Others 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, and include
within bioethics all such actions of a bear in relation to medicine and biology. However,
most bioethicists share a commitment to discussing these complex issues in an honest, civil
and intelligent way, using tools from the many different disciplines that "feed" the field to
produce meaningful frameworks for analysis.

Principles

One of the first areas addressed by modern bioethicists was that of human experimentation.
The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and
Behavioral Research was initially established in 1974 to identify the basic ethical principles
that should underlie the conduct of biomedical and behavioral research involving human
subjects. However, the fundamental principles announced in the Belmont Report (1979)--
namely, autonomy, beneficence and justice--have influenced the thinking of bioethicists
across a wide range of issues. Others have added non-maleficence, human dignity and the
sanctity of life to this list of cardinal values.
Medical ethics

Medical ethics is the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to medicine. As a
scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings
as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology.

Medical ethics tends to be understood narrowly as an applied professional ethics, whereas

bioethics appears to have worked more expansive concerns, touching upon the philosophy
of science and issues of biotechnology. Still, the two fields often overlap and the distinction
is more a matter of style than professional consensus. Medical ethics shares many
principles with other branches of healthcare ethics, such as nursing ethics. A Bioethicist
assists the health care and research community in examining moral issues involved in our
understanding of life and death, and resolving ethical dilemmas in medicine and science.
Perspectives and methodology

Bioethicists come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have training in a diverse array of
disciplines. The field contains individuals trained in philosophy such as Peter Singer of
Princeton University, Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, and Daniel Brock of Harvard
University, medically-trained clinician ethicists such as Mark Siegler of the University of
Chicago and Joseph Fins of Cornell University, lawyers such as Nancy Dubler of Albert
Einstein College of Medicine or Jerry Menikoff of the federal Office of Human Research
Protections, political economists like Francis Fukuyama, and theologians including James
Childress. The field, once dominated by formally trained philosophers, has become
increasingly interdisciplinary, with some critics even claiming that the methods of analytic
philosophy have had a negative effect on the field's development. Leading journals in the
field include The American Journal of Bioethics, Hastings Center Report, the Journal of
Medical Ethics and the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics.

Many religious communities have their own histories of inquiry into bioethical issues and
have developed rules and guidelines on how to deal with these issues from within
the viewpoint of their respective faiths. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths have each
developed a considerable body of literature on these matters. In the case of many non-
Western cultures, a strict separation of religion from philosophy does not exist. In many
Asian cultures, for example, there is a lively discussion on bioethical issues. Buddhist
bioethics, in general, is characterised by a naturalistic outlook that leads to a rationalistic,
pragmatic approach. Buddhist bioethicists include Damien Keown. In India, Vandana
Shiva is the leading bioethicist speaking from the Hindu tradition. In Africa, and partly also in
Latin America, the debate on bioethics frequently focusses on its practical relevance in the
context of underdevelopment and geopolitical power relations.