{"title":"Applying theological developments to bioethical issues such as genetic screening.","authors":"Pierre Mallia, Henk ten Have","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Catholic movements within the centre of Roman Catholic doctrine recently have discussed Trinitarian theology as applied to sciences, arts, economics, health and other social areas. We explore the possibilities Trinitarian theology offers to bioethical debate, concentrating particularly on genetic screening and testing. It is important therefore to analyse the philosophical implications of this approach onto the bioethical world, where much disagreement occurs on fundamental issues. It is Catholic basic teaching to recognize and see God's hand in plurality, not merely as a cliche and then doing what we feel is right, but to recognize how to live in a pluralistic world. We recognize, in agreement with these theologians, that in order for a Trinitarian mode of understanding to be used by those doing bioethical debate, there is a need to depart from fundamentalism.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 2","pages":"95-107"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25669712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can artificial techniques supply morally neutral human embryos for research? Part I. Creating novel categories of human embryos.","authors":"Nancy L Jones, William P Cheshire","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Manipulations of the molecular composition and formation of human embryos are posing vital new challenges to traditional concepts of human identity and procreation. Current trends in embryology in particular are reshaping the ethical question of how scientific research should treat experimentally derived embryos. Some investigators have argued that embryos created through artificial means are technologically novel entities that should be exempt from ethical restraints placed on research involving human embryos that come into being through natural processes. These include uniparental embryos derived through cloning or parthenogenesis, as well as multiparental, hybrid-parental, and xenohybrid-parental embryos. If confined to natural means many of these genetic unions could not occur, but through the intervention of technology, it is becoming possible to design and grow strange and unusual forms of embryos, in some cases using human gametes. Regardless of the genetic contributors or the processes used to fertilize and stimulate egg activation, in each case the new embryo represents an individual organism that begins a process of development. We conclude that the prospect of creating or redesigning new human life should be held to a stringent ethical standard of precaution, even higher than that of deciding to destroy existing embryonic life. Accordingly, we urge cautious ethical reflection and broad public discussion prior to deciding whether to permit embryologic research into novel forms of procreative means in nonhuman animals, to be further extended to humans.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 1","pages":"29-40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25061556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lebensunwertes Leben: the devolution of personhood in the Weimar and pre-Weimar era.","authors":"J Daryl Charles","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Radical social change in most societies does not typically occur \"overnight.\" It requires preparation--preparation in the way people think. The rise of euthanasia in western culture is a case in point. In order for assisted death to be increasingly accepted, the social-moral consensus must be altered. Typically, that consensus will be influenced by trends in biology, the behavioral sciences, ethics, law, even economics. Examining the manner in which assisted death was \"prepared\" in the decades before the ascendency of National Socialism is highly instructive as we witness the rise of euthanatic thinking in our own day several generations removed.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 1","pages":"41-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25061557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The failure of formal rights and equality in the clinic: a critique of bioethics.","authors":"Chloe G K Atkins","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For communities which espouse egalitarian principles, the hierarchical nature of care-giving relationships poses an extraordinary challenge. Patients' accounts of their illnesses and of their medical care capture the latent tension which exists between notional, political equality and the need for dependency on care from others. I believe that the power imbalance in doctor-patient relationships has broad implications for liberal democracies. Professional and care-giving relationships almost always consist of an imbalance of knowledge and expertise which no template of egalitarian moralism can suppress. When we seek help or guidance from authority figures, we are at a disadvantage politically even though we may be equal citizens theoretically and legally. Hierarchic relationships persist within democracies. Moreover, they tend to exist within a realm of privacy which is only partially visible from the social realm. In the end, traditional notions of liberal autonomy and egalitarianism do not properly describe or monitor these interactions. Liberal rhetoric (i.e., terms such as equality, rights, consent, etc.) pervades much of bioethical literature and interventions but, this very language tends to mask the persistence of structural hierarchies in the clinic. The doctor-patient relationship forces democratic communities to confront the problem of continuing hierarchic power relations and challenges liberalism to revise its understanding of individual autonomies.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 3","pages":"139-62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25853120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pain definitions revised: newborns not only feel pain, they also suffer.","authors":"Carlo Bellieni","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Premature babies are relatively unreactive, often being completely isolated in an incubator and considered incapable of social behavior. To the attentive observer, however, they reveal an unsuspected emotional world: not only do they feel pain (the clash arising from an attack to their physical integrity), but they are also capable of suffering (the clash arising from an attack to their person's integrity) as they are persons. In this paper the author argues in favour of newborns' personhood. This needs to be considered in neonatal analgesic treatment, even for extremely small babies, as recognition and adequate treatment of neonatal pain is still resisted: full acknowledgement of neonatal dignity and personhood is a prerequisite for an effective treatment of neonatal pain.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 1","pages":"5-9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25061041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Euthanasia versus letting die: Christian decision-making in terminal patients.","authors":"Dennis Sullivan","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Utilitarianism and quality-of-life considerations have increased the pressure to devalue life in terminal situations, leading to ethical confusion among caregivers. Where is the balance between a commitment to life and a commonsense willingness to \"let go\" when the time comes? This paper explores this balance, using a case history of a man with respiratory failure. This provides an opportunity to define and discuss some commonly misunderstood concepts related to end-of-life care. The ethical principles of terminal care are presented from the viewpoint of both secular and Christian ethics.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 2","pages":"109-18"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25692864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Immediate animation: Thomistic principles applied to Norman Ford's objections.","authors":"Juan R Velez","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Norman Ford and other scholars argue that the human embryo cannot have a human soul until after week two of fertilization. They claim that the individuality proper to ensoulment requires the development of the primitive streak and excludes the possibility of twinning. Their arguments are refuted by principles of philosophical realism inspired by Aristotle and Aquinas. According to these principles, the new substance formed by the union of the paternal and maternal DNA has a rational soul. The zygote, to be human, requires a human soul that determines its human development. The primitive streak is part of this development, not a condition of it. Twinning does not disprove the existence of a previous embryo with a human soul. Instead it indicates the existence of a new embryo derived from some totipotent cells that separate from the first embryo.</p>","PeriodicalId":39873,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Medicine","volume":"21 1","pages":"11-28"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"25061044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}