The bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice have been affected by advances in science and technology. Decisions now involve issues like end of life care, genetic testing, assisted suicide, and the ethics of biotechnology business practices. When making bioethical decisions, individuals or groups must consider paradigms such as individual vs. community interests, short-term vs. long-term impacts, and justice vs. mercy. Strategies for decision making include consequentialist reasoning about the greatest good, rule-based reasoning following accepted norms, and care-based reasoning prioritizing concern for others. Rapid biotechnological change is outpacing society's ability to understand implications, which
The bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice have been affected by advances in science and technology. Decisions now involve issues like end of life care, genetic testing, assisted suicide, and the ethics of biotechnology business practices. When making bioethical decisions, individuals or groups must consider paradigms such as individual vs. community interests, short-term vs. long-term impacts, and justice vs. mercy. Strategies for decision making include consequentialist reasoning about the greatest good, rule-based reasoning following accepted norms, and care-based reasoning prioritizing concern for others. Rapid biotechnological change is outpacing society's ability to understand implications, which
The bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice have been affected by advances in science and technology. Decisions now involve issues like end of life care, genetic testing, assisted suicide, and the ethics of biotechnology business practices. When making bioethical decisions, individuals or groups must consider paradigms such as individual vs. community interests, short-term vs. long-term impacts, and justice vs. mercy. Strategies for decision making include consequentialist reasoning about the greatest good, rule-based reasoning following accepted norms, and care-based reasoning prioritizing concern for others. Rapid biotechnological change is outpacing society's ability to understand implications, which
The bioethical principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice have been affected by advances in science and technology. Decisions now involve issues like end of life care, genetic testing, assisted suicide, and the ethics of biotechnology business practices. When making bioethical decisions, individuals or groups must consider paradigms such as individual vs. community interests, short-term vs. long-term impacts, and justice vs. mercy. Strategies for decision making include consequentialist reasoning about the greatest good, rule-based reasoning following accepted norms, and care-based reasoning prioritizing concern for others. Rapid biotechnological change is outpacing society's ability to understand implications, which
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Name: Rafaela P.
Dela Cruz
YEAR&SECTION: BSN-1B
PRELIMINARY EXAM BIOETHICS
QUESTION: Discuss by citing examples on how the different bioethical principles been affected by the advent of science and technology. (100 points)
ANSWER: Decisions involving bioethical issues are made every day in diverse situations such as the relationship between patients and their physicians, the treatment of human subjects in biomedical experimentation, the allocation of scarce medical resources, the complex questions that surround the beginning and the end of a human life and the conduct of clinical medicine and life sciences research.
Ethicists serve as advisers to hospitals and other health care institutions. They also have served as advisers to federal and state legislatures in the writing of laws concerning the decision to end life support, the use of genetic testing, physician-assisted suicide and other matters. Bioethics even has become part of the landscape in the commercial world of science. An increasing number of firms involved in biotechnology regularly consult with biomedical ethicists about business and research practices. Many medical schools include ethics courses that examine topics such as theories of moral decision-making and the responsible conduct of medical research.
BIOETHICAL DECISION-MAKING
Decision-making in bioethics occurs when an individual or group of individuals confronts a bioethical dilemma that requires a choice be made between two or more seemingly conflicting outcomes. Often, there are both positive and negative consequences to each of these possible outcomes. In trying to reach decisions, bioethicists consider the following paradigms:
Individual vs. Community
In this paradigm, the needs and interests of the individual are weighed against the needs and interests of the community.
Short-Term vs. Long-Term
In this paradigm, the costs and benefits that will arise in the short-term are weighed against the costs and benefits that will arise in the long-term.
Justice vs. Mercy
In this paradigm, the need for exacting appropriate justice is weighed against the need to show appropriate mercy.
Each of these paradigms characterizes a unique struggle between competing values. Strategies used to make decisions tend to fall into one of the following three broad categories:
Ends-Based Reasoning: Operates on the principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number” Rule-Based Reasoning: Guided by the rules that generally guide the actions of the people in the community Care-Based Reasoning: Uses concern for others as the guiding principle for a moral decision ETHICAL AND SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS
Why should we care about bioethical issues? The rapid advance of biotechnology quickly is outpacing our ability as a society to absorb how our lives will be affected by these new technologies. We already are grappling with many serious and wide-ranging issues, such as cloning, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization and prenatal identification of genetic disorders. Advances made possible by biotechnology profoundly will affect what it means to be human and how we live our lives. It will have implications in many areas, including politics (public policy, legislation and control of resources), spirituality (“What is life?”, “What does it mean to be human?”) and culture (“What implications do our genetic makeups reveal?”, “What are the implications of new technology for gender, class and race?”).
As a result of these recent, unparalleled advances, the need for thoughtful engagement in bioethical decision-making has grown increasingly urgent. That need extends beyond the professional communities of the bioengineering and biotechnology industries to include all members of society, because the burden of establishing accepted practices falls on us all. In order to meet this burden, it is critical that the members of our society are intellectually prepared.
Issues in biotechnology have the potential to challenge deeply held beliefs and traditions surrounding ethics, spirituality and culture.
Some ethical issues are associated with risk. These include such questions as, “What level of risk is acceptable?”, “Who decides?” and “Who carries the risk?”
These risks and benefits apply not only to individuals, but also to public health and ecosystems. For what purposes should genetic modification technology be used? By whom, and under what conditions? Are there activities that should never be allowed, even if we are able to overcome the safety issues?
Issues also can challenge our social and cultural views and beliefs about the intrinsic value of organisms and the choices we make when having children and forming families.
With advancing technology and modern innovations, new and exciting insights are being gained for many scientific processes and diseases. But at the same time, new questions of medical ethics continually arise, such as, “What can happen?”, “What are the odds?” and “How do scientists know what will happen?”
