Issues in Bioethics

Ethical Dilemmas in Biology & Medicine

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What are ethics? What is morality? How can one behave in a moral manner? These are among the most difficult and most interesting questions which face people of any age. Today, however, with advancing technology, difficult moral situations come upon us faster than we can even create the questions, much less find the answers. This guide includes selected essays that address both general issues and specific questions in the area of moral philosophy as it relates to biology and medicine.

Introduction to Bioethics
Bioethics is an especially difficult field because it regularly concerns some of the most troubling topics: the nature of life, the nature of death, what sort of life is worth living, what constitutes murder, how we should treat people who are in especially vulnerable and painful circumstances, just what sort of responsibilities any of has to other human beings, and so on. Bioethics is not a wholly independent field - it must, obviously, draw a great deal from other ethical discussions.

Highlights:
•  Medicine, Ethics, and Philosophy
•  The Need for Bioethics
•  Principles of Bioethics

Pregnancy, Abortion, and the Fetus
Some of the most rancorous and divisive debates in modern science either touch upon or are tied up with these issues. A better understanding of them can be aided by a detailed examination of some specific moral dilemmas that have arisen.

Highlights:
•  Artificial Wombs: the End of Natural Motherhood?
•  Pregnancy & Privacy
•  Gender Selection

Questions of Life and Death
What is life and what does it mean to be alive? What is death and is there any "bright line" that allows us to definitively say that someone is no longer alive but is now dead?

Highlights:
•  What is Death?
•  Selling Organs
•  Genes and Identity

Drugs and Medical Treatment
What is life and what does it mean to be alive? What is death and is there any "bright line" that allows us to definitively say that someone is no longer alive but is now dead?

Highlights:
•  Prescriptions & Kickbacks
•  Prozac as Pancea
•  Quarantines: Public Health vs. Personal Liberty

Glossary: Religion & Philosophy
This extensive glossary provides detailed information on philosophical and religious concepts, from abandonment to Zeno of Elea! (over 2400 entries total)

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