Bioethics
Excerpted from Signal Hill website 12 Feb 2010
Bioethics
Bioethics is a particular field of ethics that studies advances in medicine and medical technology and how they apply to the human person. New advances in medicine have greatly enhanced our ability to provide care, but these advances need to be guided by ethical principles. This was first acknowledged publically at Nuremburg when ethical guidelines involving the treatment of human beings in biomedical experiments was examined and defined. Since then the study of how we use medicine to improve our lives has continued.
The subject matter of Bioethicists is both wide and varied. Bioethics covers such topics as abortion, organ transplantation, health care costs and human reproductive technologies. The principles that underlie each subject area are less varied – the concern is for the betterment of human life and its protection from abuse.
At the heart of Bioethics is the person, their rights and dignity and how we can best promote medical advancements without breaching these inviolable realities.