UNIT 13: INTRODUCTION TO BIOETHICS

● Primary focus of medical ethics, animal ethics,

environmental ethics
TRANS OUTLINE ● Doctors use their knowledge and power
I. ETHICS
○ To benefit the sick
a. What is Bioethics
○ Do no harm
b. History of Bioethics
c. Why do we Study Bioethics ○ Preserve life
d. Principles of Bioethics ○ Keep in strictest confidence any
e. Autonomy Freedom of Choice patient information
f. Non-maleficence Do No Harm ○ HOWEVER, after WWII, it became clear
g. Beneficence Do Good that medical ethics was no longer
h. Justice fairness sufficient to meet contemporary
i. Specific Areas in Bioethics
challenges
j. Bioethical Issues

Why do we study Bioethics?

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ETHICS ● Address perennial ethical problems, issues,

dilemmas confronting health care workers and
● Ethos their patients
● Moral principles that govern a person's ● Address legal problems in healthcare with
behavior or the conduct of an activity. ethical concerns
● Set of rules that society have to agree about ● Address the challenges of modern technology
living with other people ● Enhance professional development and ethical
● Moral philosophy values of health care professionals
● Branch of philosophy that involves
systematizing, defending, and recommending Principles of Bioethics
concepts of right and wrong conduct. ● Autonomy
○ Freedom of choice
What is Bioethics ● Non-maleficence
● Bio: life ○ Do no harm
● Ethics: way of acting ● Beneficence
● Branch of ethics ○ Do good
● Ethics of life ● Justice
● Life of science: Biology ○ Fairness and equality
● Philosophy ● Principles can overlap and compete with each
● Professional ethics in allied health other for priority
● Often known as medical ethics or clinical
ethics Autonomy Freedom of Choice
● Philosophical study of ethical issues ● Considering patient’s desires within the
● Application of the basic principles of ethics to bounds of accepted treatment
the new possibilities ● Involving patients in making decisions
● Interdisciplinary study of problems brought ● Considering patients’ needs, desires, and
about by biological and medical progress and abilities
its impact in the society and value system ● Safeguarding patients’ privacy

History of Bioethics Non-maleficence Do No Harm

● Preceded by medical ethics ● Protecting patient from harm
● No intentional harm or injury be done on the
patient
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 ● Knowing one’s own limitations
● Knowing when delegation of patients’ care to
trainees is appropriate

Beneficence Do Good
● Service to the patient and the public at large
● Duty to promote patient’s welfare
● Competent and timely delivery of health care
● To always act in the best interest of the patient

Justice fairness

● Delivering healthcare without prejudice or

discrimination
● Shall not deny service to patients due to race,
color, creed, gender, nationality
● Attend to patients according to need
● To always act in the best interest of the patient

Specific Areas in Bioethics

● Clinical Ethics
○ Identify and clarify ethical questions
○ Find ethically acceptable course/s of
action
● Reproductive Ethics
○ Encourage honest and respectable
○ Reproductive justice
communication among all patients
○ Issues on:
○ Recommend clinically and ethically
■ assisted reproduction
acceptable solutions
● Surrogacy
○ Improve institutional responses to
● Genetic manipulation
ethical dilemmas
■ restricting fertility
● Genetics
● Sterilization
○ challenged by the increased collection
● Contraception
and use of personal, medical,
■ abortion
biological information
○ privacy and security
Bioethical Issues
○ challenge on autonomy
● Abortion
● Clinical Neuroethics
○ premature ending of a pregnancy
○ consciousness
○ issue of intense moral and personal
○ deep brain stimulation
concern
○ enhancement in clinical setting • pain
■ sexuality
○ death
■ autonomy
● Precision Medicine
■ politics
■ science
■ religion
● Surrogacy
○ assisted reproduction
○ gestational surrogates
○ Issues:
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 ■ exploitation of poor women
who are desperate for money
■ complication of women’s
bodies as commodities
■ the moral and ethical
consequences of transforming
a normal biological function of
a woman’s body into a
commercial transaction
● Whole Genome Screening
○ complete genome
○ allows for early determination of a
newborn’s predisposition to certain
diseases
○ Issues:
■ data and information release
■ identifiability
■ adequacy of consent
■ stereotyping or stigmatization
● Human Cloning
○ creating a new population of
genetically similar organisms
○ reproduction of human cells or tissues
○ Issues:
■ individuals as sources of
organs
■ human life becoming a
commodity
■ safety and efficacy of
procedures
■ use for destructive embryonic
stem cell research
■ effects on child/parent
relationships
● Stem Cell Research and Therapy
○ embryo as a source of undifferentiated
cells
○ use of stem cells to treat diseases
○ Issues:
■ medical risks
■ protection of the reproductive
interests of women
■ confidentiality of donor
information
■ forces us to choose between
preserving the life of the
embryo and alleviating pain or
suffering
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● Eugenics
○ improving the human society or race
by selectively
○ aims to reduce human suffering by
“breeding out” disease, disabilities and
so-called undesirable
○ characteristics from the human
population
○ Issues:
■ horrible abuses committed in
the name of eugenics through
coercive policies
■ how new genetic knowledge is
used
■ confidentiality of donor
information
■ social inequality
■ subjectivity of perfection
● Euthanasia
○ good death
○ ending the life of an individual to cease
pain or suffering
○ assisted suicide or mercy-killing
○ Issues:
■ sanctity of life
■ autonomy and human rights
■ doctor-patient relationship
○ Euthanasia fails to see the dignity of
the human person
○ Mercy should be extended without
inducing death
● Cryonics
○ reversion of death
○ freezing to reanimate
○ −196 °C or −320.8 °F
○ Issues:
■ Autonomy and rights of a
person
■ right and dignity of the
healthcare team
■ Non-maleficence
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