Bioethics

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Bioethics
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• Morality is used to refer to a set of social
  conventions about what is right or wrong in human
  conduct Ethics refers to the field that
  examines the rationale behind such customs or
  practices

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Another definition

• The good life
• The life well-lived

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Ethical Doctrines

• Utilitarianism (act vs. rule)
• Deontology
• Virtue ethics

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Utilitarianism

• Put forth by John Stuart Mill
• That which propagates the most good is the best
  thing to do
• The ends justify the means?
• Act utilitarianism vs. Rule utilitarianism

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Deontology

• Includes ethical theories of Emmanuel Kant
• Only the rightness or wrongness of actions
  themselves can be judged
• There are no ends, only means

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Virtue ethics

• Includes ethical codes of Aristotle
• Cultivating personal character is more important
  than specific rules or codes

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Topics in bioethics

• Biopiracy
• Right-to-life
• Right-to-die
• Intellectual property
• Medical research ethics- animal research
• Human clinical research
• Privacy rights
• Reproductive rights
• Artificial procreation
• Genetically modified organisms
• Scientific integrity
• Confirmation bias
• Stem cells
• Funding sources

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More topics in bioethics

• Abortion Animal rights Artificial insemination
  Artificial life Artificial womb Assisted suicide
  Biopiracy Blood/blood plasma (trade) Body
  modification Brain-computer interface Chimeras
  Circumcision Cloning Confidentiality (medical
  records) Consent Contraception (birth control)
  Cryonics Disability Eugenics Euthanasia
  (human, non-human animal) Feeding tube Gene
  therapy Genetically modified food Genetically
  modified organism Genomics Great Ape Project
  Human cloning Human enhancement Human genetic
  engineering Iatrogenesis Infertility
  (treatments) Life extension Life support
  Lobotomy Medical malpractice Medical research
  Medical torture Moral obligation Nanomedicine
  Organ donation (fair allocation, class and race
  biases) Pain management Parthenogenesis
  Patients' Bill of Rights Placebo Population
  controlPrescription drugs (prices in the US)
  Procreative beneficence Professional ethics
  Psychosurgery Recreational drug use
  Reproductive rights Reprogenetics Sperm and
  eggs (donation) Spiritual drug use Stem cell
  research Suicide Surrogacy Transexuality
  Transhumanism Transplant trade
  Xenotransplantation

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3 interesting topics

• Ethics in reproductive technology
• Intellectual property
• Scientific integrity

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Reproductive Rights

• DNA, or entire cells, can be extracted from
  fertilized embryos
• Usually done at 8-cell stage
• More embryos are fertilized than can be used

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Intellectual property

• Monsanto v. Schmeiser
• Glyphosate-resistant (Roundup ready) canola

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Bt Corn and the Monarch Butterfly

• Bt toxin is a gene found in a bacterium,
  Baccillus thurgiensis
• Kills insects
• Gene can be transfected into corn
• Does the corn kill monarch butterflies?

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