FOUNDATIONAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

AUTONOMY Rule 3: Uphold the rights of individuals and provide

 Individuals have the right to make their own
decisions and choices, guided by their own values,
beliefs, and preferences.
 Emphasizes respecting and valuing a person’s
capacity for self-governance and right to make
informed choices without coercion or undue influence
Rule 1: Respect the right of individuals to make their
own decisions and choices
Rule 2: Obtain informed consent before taking actions
that affect others
Rule 3: Provide relevant information to enable
individuals to make informed decisions
Rule 4: Avoid coercion or undue influence when
seeking consent
BENEFICENCE
 Doing good and promoting the well-being of others
 Taking actions that contribute positively to the welfare
and improvement of individuals and society
 Actively seeking opportunities to prevent harm and
provide benefits to others
equal access to benefits
Rule 4: Act in ways that contribute to the creation of a
just and inclusive society
THREE STEPS IN ETHICAL-DECISION MAKING
1. IDENTIFY THE ETHICAL DILEMMA
 Recognize and define the ethical issue or dilemma
you are facing.
 Clearly understand the conflicting values,
responsibilities, or choices involved in the situation.
 Determine if the situation involves ethical principles
such as honesty, fairness, or the well-being of
individuals.
2. EVALUATE OPTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES
 Consider different courses of action and evaluate
their potential outcomes and consequences.
 Analyze how each option aligns with ethical principles
and values.
 Assess the potential benefits, harms, and
implications for all stakeholders involved.

Rule 1: Act in ways that promote the well-being and
best interest of others
Rule 2: Seek opportunities to prevent harm and
enhance positive outcomes
Rule 3: Prioritize actions that contribute to the
improvement of the quality of life
Rule 4: Balance the benefits of an action against
potential risks and harms
3. CHOOSE AND JUSTIFY A DECISION
 Select the course of action that best upholds ethical
principles and aligns with your values.
 Provide a clear and rational justification for your
decision based on the ethical analysis.
 Consider how the decision respects the rights and
well-being of individuals and contributes to a just and
ethical outcome.

NONMALEFICENCE
 “Do no harm”
 Obligation to avoid causing harm or inflicting
unnecessary suffering.
 Guides ethical decision-making by encouraging
actions that minimize risks and potential harm, even
when pursuing beneficial outcomes

Rule 1: Avoid causing harm or inflicting unnecessary

suffering
Rule 2: Take steps to prevent harm and minimize risks
Rule 3: Be cautious when facing situations with
potential negative outcomes
Rule 4: Choose the course of action that does the least
harm while achieving a positive outcome

JUSTICE
 Fairness, equality, and the equitable distribution of
resources, opportunities, and burdens in society
 Treating all individuals with impartiality and without
discrimination, while ensuring that individuals are
given what they deserve based on relevant criteria
 Concerned with creating a just and inclusive
society where everyone is treated fairly

Rule 1: Treat all individuals fairly and impartially,w/o

discrimination
Rule 2: Ensure equitable distribution of resources and
opportunities
 EXPLORING REPRODUCTIVE ETHICS
CARE AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFE
 The way life is brought into existence and the way in
which the nature of future human lives are intervened
with reflect this age of consumer mentality and
market ethics.
 For a service fee, then, sex were selected, genes
were improved. Children therefore were made to
satisfy the desire market.
 Though this may sound economically good yet its not
done for the common good. Commercialization had
led to the continued use and abuse of human life and
human person.
 Issue at the beginning of life is peculiar because it
involves: mother, father, and fetus that cannot give
consent, has no wishes and cannot defend itself.
NATURAL REPRODUCTION
→ Female ovaries expel the mature egg towards the
Fallopian tubes every 28 days
→ The male’s testes produce the sperms which are
expelled at ejaculation.
→ With the conjugal act the sperms are deposited in
the vaginal canal.
→ The sperm travel up into the uterus into the
Fallopian tubes and there fertilize the egg.
→ The fertilized egg or embryo travels down the
uterus where it is implanted, develops, grow.
→ After 9 months, the baby is born.
PRINCIPLES
1. INVIOLABILITY OF LIFE - all humans from the
moment of conception and through all subsequent
stages is sacred. Thus, all have the duty to affirm,
respect, love and defend it.
► Violation: Abortion, In Vitro-Fertilization, and
Stem Cell Research
2. STEWARDSHIP - man must take care, cultivate
creatures within the creature’s innate nature and
teleology and within man’s knowledge and
understanding
► Violation: Surgical sterility, substitution of
reproduction, use of hormones, intra-uterine
devices (IUD), donation of sperm or egg
genetic manipulation
3. DOUBLE EFFECT - a foreseen evil effect may be
allowed if the foreseen intended good effect is greater
than and does not result from the evil effect.
► Application: Maternal-fetal conflict, removal
of diseased organ like in ectopic pregnancy,
anencephalic ifants
4. NONMALIFECENCE - do no and risk no harm
► Application: Sterilization, hormones
psychological harm and financial effect of new
technologies
5. BENEFICENCE - do good and provide benefit
► Application: Removing diseased organs,
facilitating pregnancy, educating on
responsible parenthood
6.1. RESPECT FOR PERSON - not to be denatured
► Violation: Artificial methods of reproduction
and cloning
6.2. RESPECT FOR PERSON - to be an end and not a
means to an end
► Violation: Contraception, commodification of
sperm/egg, uterus dysfunction, and embryonic
manipulation
ASSISTED REPRODUCTION
 The right to procreate is limited by man’s nature.
Artificial methods that help the conjugal act and
ultimately reproduction are praiseworthy
 Use of folic acid, sex education, fertility awareness
and planning, fertility drugs or hormones, viagra,
microsurgery to correct reproductive organ defects,
delivery with forceps, these assisted reproduction
abide with the bioethical principles
 Artifical insemination by AIH/AID, Zygote
implantation into fallopian tube (ZIFT),
Intracytoplamic sperm injection (ICSI) replace the
conjugal act and are illicit
IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION AND EMBRYONIC
TRANSFER (IVF-ET)
 Gametes are separately harvested, in number of
eggs are fertilized in “petri dish” where some zygotes
are implanted into the mother and the unwanted
embryo may be removed.
 This is not in conformity with the following principles:
1. Inviolability of Life (some unwanted zygote are
allowed to die)
2. Stewardship (the procedure is artificial and it
substitutes the conjugal act)
3. Non maleficence (the baby may develop the
“genealogical bewilderment syndrome”, if sperm is
from a donor, the unknown biological lineage may
lead to incest or inherited diseases. Mothers are
psychologically harm by series of unsuccessful
attempt)
4. Justice (if private funds are used the prohibitive
cost limits availability to the rich. If public funds are
used, more essential needs are abandoned)
5. Respect for Person (the human body, the
uterus, sperm egg becomes commodities trafficked,
transferred or sold; the baby is not a gift but a
product of other’s will to be disposed of as desired)
CLONING
 Reproduction of a genetic copy of another human
being through ‘splitting’ of the embryo’s cell or
through somatic cell nuclear transfer.
 The latter, involved the removal of nucleus from the
unfertilized female egg and its replacement by the
nucleus of a cell taken from donor
 Embryos are cloned either to provide human ABORTION
embryonic stem cells (ES cells) as precursors for  Process of deliberately terminating pregnancy with
differentiated cells to treat diseased (mean the resulting death of an entity or it is a process of
therapeutic cloning) or to produce a new individual by deliberately terminating pregnancy at any stage of its
implanting it in a woman’s uterus (mean reproductive development
cloning).
 Now, harvesting of human ES cells requires Types of Abortion
destruction of the embryo. Cloning violates: 1. Direct Abortion (induced) : kind of abortion with the
1. Inviolability of Life (embryos are destroyed in intentional of immediate purpose of ending or
the therapeutic cloning) destroying the fetus at any stage of after its
2. Stewardship (the process is artificial) conception. It violates the principles of natural
3. Non maleficence (the psychological and reproduction.
physical risks to mother and child. In addition, the
concept of the ‘family’ is perhaps destroyed) 2. Indirect Abortion : process of terminating pregnancy
4. Respect for Person (denatured and destroyed directly in which the moral object of the action is the
by stock breeding with no uniqueness ans therapy of the mother and the death of the fetus is a
individuality; parents were reduced to a mere side effect that is inevitably unavoidable effect.
providers of human ‘materials’, like, sperm, egg Example: Removal of pathological tube containing
and uterus) a fertilized ovum in an ectopic pregnancy, removal
of the cancerous gravid uterus (justified by the
PREVENTION OF REPRODUCTION principle of double effect)
 Contraceptive or abortive.
 Reasons why other people choose this methods: Abortion is done through
space pregnancy, health, economics, 1. Injection with concentration saline (salt) - injection
unreadiness, no desire to be obligated to try to into their mother’s womb. It burns their skin off them
have children and others.
while were still alive the babies breathe it in and
swallow it, frying their insides. Some of babies were
CONTRACEPTION
born alive despite this torture and are then ‘disposed of’
 Any action which in anticipation of the conjugal
2. Dilation and Evacuation Dilation - using a suction
act (castration, tube ligation, vasectomy, oral or tube to remove the fetus and placenta
parental hormones to prevent ovulation) 3. Hysterectomy - abortion by cesarian surgery
 or on its accomplishment (like, spermatocides in
4. Vacuum aspiration - suctioning of the lining of the
creams, jellies, foams or suppositories, coitus
uterus through the use of a thin and flexible tube
interuptus, condoms, diaphragm, hormones which
inserted through the opening of the cervix
thicken cervical muscus)
 Or in the development of its natural
consequences (like IUD, abortion, fetal reduction)
whether as an end or means, prevents the
creation of new life.
 Contraceptives treat fertility as a negative value that
should be suppressed.
 It violates or it is nonconformity to:
1. Inviolability of Life (drugs and devices that
inhibit fertilized ovum transport to and implantation
in the uterus or its development are abortificient.
They kill the fetus)
2. Stewardship (it promotes hedonistic mentality
with refusal to accept the reproductive
responsibility of sexual or to recognize a new
human being)
3. Non maleficence (castration removes a healthy
organ, tubal occlusion or ligation and vasectomy
prevents a healthy function. IUD promotes infection
as well. Contraception as well promotes premarital
sex, extramarital sex, or homosexuality)
4. Respect for Person (to have one spouse use
the other spouse as a means for one’s satisfaction
or pleasure is a sign of disrepect)
 ORGAN SELLING AND EUTHANASIA
CARE AT THE PROMOTION OF LIFE: ORGAN
TRANSPLANTATION AND DONATION
Organ transplantation has saved many lives, but the
scarcity of organs has led to abuses such as organ
robbing, commercialization, and exploitation. Violations
occur in these abuses.
TERMS TO CONSIDER
 Organ donation: means the giving of
tissue/organ/body by a person to another person or
to an institution
 Donor: the given who may be a cadaver (with an
assumptive document by the donor when still alive or
by proxy) or a living person (either by relatives, non-
relative)
 Vendor: is a person who exchange their organ for
money
 Recipient: the receiver of the organ given by the
donor or institution; a recipient who pay the organ is
a buyer
 Organ transplantation: means the transfer or the
planting across of organ from donor/vendor to
recipient/buyer
 Xenotransplantation: is the planting of an organ
from animal organ to human beings.
 Allotransplantation: it is the transplantation of the
organ from one body to another body of the same
species.
CARE AT THE END OF LIFE: EUTHANASIA AND
PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE
One's views on life and death shape how they deal with
dying. Some choose euthanasia or assisted suicide to
end suffering, while others use technology to prolong
life, dysthanasia. A good death, or orthothanasia, is
seen as the natural end of a good life.
TYPES OF DEATH
 Euthanasia means an action/omission which of itself
or by intention causes death, in order that suffering
may be eliminated. It procures/imposes death before
one’s time.
 Dysthanasia is the delaying or postponing death
beyond its natural time by all means available.
 Orthothanasia, also known as passive euthanasia or
natural death, is an ethical concept and medical
practice that involves allowing a terminally ill or
suffering patient to die naturally, without aggressive
medical interventions or life-sustaining treatments.
Unlike active euthanasia, where medical
professionals take active steps to end a patient's life,
orthothanasia involves refraining from interventions
that would artificially prolong the dying process or life
when there is little hope of recovery.

ORGAN DONOR
 Our main concern Is to care life that is the life of the
donor
 Stewardship and nonmaleficence states that man
must take care of his body and do no harm to it.
► If the donor is the cadaver, harvesting an
organ will do no harm.
► If the donor is living, taking away a healthy
organ is not taking care one’s body; no life is
saved, no health is restored.
► Removal of organ may even be mutilation
 However, a very proportionate reason and a
meritorious act may override the rule of stewardship
and non-maleficence
► The rule of unselfish love, solidarity love of
neighbor, beneficence, and charity may
supercede the rules of stewardship and non-
maleficence
► In such a case, it is praiseworthy, for it takes
what it means to belong to a human society
that we are fulfilling our duty to one another
(deontology) and to contribute to the goal of
medicine.