Biomedical Ethics: Humanist Perspectives of Humanism Today (Humanism Today, 17) - Hardcover

Radest, Howard B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591024234 ISBN 13: 9781591024231

Verlag: Prometheus, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Biomedical ethics raises a host of humanistic issues. Among these are human dignity, personal autonomy, quality of life, and access to care for all. Now, more than ever, scientific discoveries and medical technologies prompt us to rethink older perspectives. Humanists have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the moral agenda of the future. In this collection of thoughtful articles from the Humanist Institute, humanist scholars from various fields explore a number of critical issues in bioethics. The moral status of the human embryo, scientific medicine versus Eastern concepts of caregiving, the human genome project, eugenics, contraception, and the economics of healthcare are just some of the topics considered in this enlightening volume. The contributors include: Berit Brogaard, Vern Bullough, Carmela Epright, Faith Lagay, Mason Olds, Howard B. Radest, Philip Regal, Andreas S. Rosenberg, Harvey Sarles, David Schafer, Robert B. Tapp, Stephen P. Weldon, and Michael Werner. For students of ethics, healthcare practitioners and policy makers, and everyone who wishes to participate intelligently in decisions involving cure and care, this work is of great value.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Howard B. Radest (Hilton Head, SC) is an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, Beaufort, Dean Emeritus of the Humanist Institute, Chair of the Biomedical Ethics Committee of Hilton Head Regional Medical Center, consultant to the Ethics committee of the South Carolina Medical Association, and consultant to the Center for Public Health Preparedness, School of Public Health, University of South Carolina. His most recent book is From Clinic to Classroom: Medical Ethics and Moral Education.

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Biomedical Ethics

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2006 North American Committee for Humanism (NACH)
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-59102-423-1

Contents

Acknowledgments.........................................................................................9Introduction: Humanism and the New Biology Howard B. Radest............................................11SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVES ON BIOETHICS1. Twenty-first Century Bioethical Problems Philip Regal...............................................232. Bioscience and the Recovery of Nerve David Schafer..................................................493. Bioethics of the Germline Andreas S. Rosenberg......................................................674. The Moral Status of the Human Embryo Berit Brogaard.................................................815. Exploring the Boundaries Between the Scientific and the Spiritual Harvey Sarles.....................91EXCURSIONS INTO HISTORY6. Humanitas and the Human Genome Faith Lagay..........................................................1097. Joseph Fletcher Revisited Mason Olds................................................................1178. Eugenics and Biotechnology Stephen P. Weldon........................................................139PUTTING BIOETHICS TO WORK9. Biology as a Window Into Therapy Michael Werner.....................................................15310. Bioethics, Contraception, and Business Vern L. Bullough............................................16511. Bioethics and Justice Carmela Epright..............................................................17512. Rationing is Not a Four Letter Word Howard B. Radest...............................................18913. Poverty, Health, and Bioethics Robert B. Tapp......................................................207ADDENDUM14. Before and After Schiavo Carmela Epright...........................................................22115. Prescription Drugs, Medicare Part D Kristy Maher....................................................229Contributors............................................................................................235

Chapter One

Twenty-first Century Bioethical Problems

Where Is Bioethics?

Philip Regal

THE BIRTH OF HIGH-TECH GENETICS

Changes in economic systems have interacted with technological developments throughout history to change people's lives and values. Knowing this, it was predicted since at least the 1920s that new developments in biology and medicine could eventually change human life more profoundly than the industrial revolution.

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) is a familiar literary landmark that reminds us of the interest in biological futurism early in the 20th century, and one might also recall the utopian eugenic dreams that had generated widespread and notorious enthusiasm by the 1930s. The great biologist Julian Huxley, brother of Aldous, had written a short story in 1926, "The Tissue Culture King." A scientist uses his knowledge to serve his own self-interest and secure his position with a tribe in the jungles of Africa. Huxley prompted the reader to ponder to what ends the foreseeable power of biology would be used. Would it be used largely to cater to old tribal dreams and aspirations, or should we try to figure out better things to do with it?

Meanwhile, the visions of a future dominated by biology involved especially grand predictions for the anticipated "genetic engineering" or "biotechnology" at the great private foundations, notably Rockefeller, and among the scientists they assembled and funded. They set out to do nothing less than create the technical basis for this new chapter in human evolution and economics. The high-tech genetic technologies and the economic/commercial enterprises that were expected to emerge around them would change human society more profoundly than the Industrial Revolution, and would indeed change notions about the definitions of life, nature, and even the human species itself. Their vision, in the spirit of genetic utopia, was completely optimistic, and had no downside.

Then, after decades of intense research, the first genes were spliced together chemically with recombinant DNA techniques in the 1970s. Molecular biologists at the National Academy of Science encouraged government to promote the new technology to private investors and directed agencies to accelerate the development of a publicly funded infrastructure for research and industrialization. Legal, social, and economic incentives were developed to blur the line between basic biology and corporate culture and university scientists were encouraged to become entrepreneurial, and the managers of academic programs in biological and medical research and teaching forced close ties with industry.

Industrial biotechnology was born and its character was shaped as it grew throughout the formative 1980s. By the 1990s the biotech community of entrepreneurial university scientists, life-science corporations, lawyers, and their allies in government agencies had become a major political force in the United States and Europe and indeed globally.

ETHICAL MATTERS

Economic and technological forces historically have tended to change ethical standards of societies. Developments in high tech biology, in basic science, medicine, agriculture, and industry generally have tended to assert pressures on ethical perceptions and standards not simply by working their way into "individual life styles." Nothing like simple "market forces" or consumer demand was asserting the pressures. Rather, pressures from special interests were brought to bear within arenas where, in theory, democratic society as a whole was supposed to have the constitutional power to make choices in policy, funding programs, and law after orderly study and debate. Yet too often the public ethical discussions of these have been intellectually inadequate, detached from the politics of policy formulation, much of which takes place in the shadows and heavily influenced by lobbying, old-boy networks, and expensive public relations campaigns.

"Ethical discussions" have been typically little more than rationalizations about the "greater good." The simplifications, claims and assumptions that the advocates have made and continue to make tend not to be carefully and critically examined. Persuasion and decision are done out of the sight of public scrutiny.

The forced merger between academic biology and medicine and industry in the 1980s, for example, generated many conflicts of interest in government and research and thus raised a number of ethical issues. Could scientists provide the objectivity that society had a right to expect? How would financial involvements impact upon doctor-patient relationships and upon health care systems in general? Could agricultural scientists provide objective technical advice to farmers? When asked how they would deal with such matters, administrators typically tended to give vague answers like, "We will evolve solutions as we go along." "But so much good will come of these changes that whatever price we pay will be worth the costs."

There has been a good deal of frustration with such mergers among involved citizens and scientists who have tried to monitor developments in the biotech/biomedical industries. Personally, I had an opportunity to watch the processes by which policies were developed for nearly 20 years from very close to the centers of power in the United States and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Prometheus
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1591024234
• ISBN 13: 9781591024231
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 236
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande