Anthologies on abortion and general medical ethics texts often seem to recycle the same old, but good, arguments. Can anything new be said about this sensitive and contentious topic? Contributors to this volume were invited to say something original, as well as something old, but essential about the factual, valuational, religious and metaphysical issues relevant to abortion, all of which are woven together so intricately into our diverse and seemingly irreconcilable world-views.

Essays in this volume consider the conceptual links between views on abortion and foetal development, abortion procedures, religion, laws and public funding (or no funding) policies. Authors also defend well-defined and differentiated positions on abortion that can broadly be described as the Roman Catholic, the Conservative, the Moderate and the Liberal positions.

New Essays on Abortion and Bioethics will provide readers with useful models of critical and rational thinking for addressing the topic of abortion. The essays will help to illuminate a subject about which there is often too much heat and too little light.

This book provides a multidisciplinary analysis of the potential conflict between a government's duty to protect children and a parent(s)' right to raise children in a manner they see fit. Using philosophical, bioethical, and legal analysis, the author engages with key scholars in pediatric decision-making and individual and religious rights theory. Going beyond the parent-child dyad, the author is deeply concerned both with the inteests of the broader society and with the appropriate limits of government interference in the private sphere. The text offers a balance of individual and population interests, maximizing liberty but safeguarding against harm. Bioethics and law professors will therefore be able to use this text for both a foundational overview as well as specific, subject-level analysis. Clinicians such as pediatricians and gynecologists, as well as policy-makers can use this text to achieve balance between these often competing claims. The book is written by a physician with practical and theoretical knowledge of the subject, and deep sympathy for the parental and family perspectives. As such, the book proposes a new way of evaluating parental and state interventions in children's' healthcare: a refreshing approach and a useful addition to the literature.

What is pediatric suffering, and how is the suffering of sick children different from that of sick adults? This book attempts to answer these pressing questions. Through philosophical engagement with a clinical case, the essays in this book approach the problem of pediatric suffering from a set of unique perspectives reflecting diverse philosophical traditions, disciplinary formations, and clinical experiences. Previously published in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics Volume 41, issue 4, August 2020 Chapter "Valuing life and evaluating suffering in infants with life-limiting illness" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

This book describes the alarming condition of agriculture in the Anthropocene, when the ethical conception of agriculture as a service of common utility for both society and environment has progressively been marginalized. The ethical utility of agriculture has been sidetracked with the increasing industrialisation of society, the involvement of agriculture in the business-as-usual economy, and the consequential environmental and societal impacts it has had. Thus, re-establishing a meaningful bridge between ethics and agriculture is necessary. A relatively new science (ecology) with both a new epistemological tool (that of the ecosystem concept), and a unique narrative of sustainable development, can help bridge this gap. This book focuses on ethics as a lever for raising scientific, technical, social, economic and political solutions to adopt in agriculture as a model of symbiotic relationships between man and nature. It provides a detailed discussion of the ecological intensification practices in order to maximize ecological and ethical services, wherein agroecosystems will follow.

This open access volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview of different charting practices and experiences in various countries and healthcare contexts. Encompassing case studies and analyses of theological, ethical, legal, healthcare policy, and practical issues, the volume is a groundbreaking reference for future discussion, research, and strategic planning for inter- or multi-faith healthcare chaplains and other spiritual care providers involved in the new field of documenting spiritual care in EMR. Topics explored among the chapters include: Spiritual Care Charting/Documenting/Recording/Assessment Charting Spiritual Care: Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Aspects Palliative Chaplain Spiritual Assessment Progress Notes Charting Spiritual Care: Ethical Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care in Digital Health: Analyses and Perspectives Charting Spiritual Care: The Emerging Role of Chaplaincy Records in Global Health Care is an essential resource for researchers in interprofessional spiritual care and healthcare chaplaincy, healthcare chaplains and other spiritual caregivers (nurses, physicians, psychologists, etc.), practical theologians and health ethicists, and church and denominational representatives.

This book explores major bioethical issues emerging from the development and use of artificial intelligence in medical settings. The authors start by defining the past, present and future of artificial intelligence in medical settings and then proceed to address the resulting common and specific bioethical inquiries. The book discusses bioethical inquiries in two separate sets. The first set is comprised of ontological discussions mainly focusing on personhood and being an ethical agent of an artefact. The second set discusses bioethical issues resulting from the use of artificial intelligence. It focuses particularly on the area of artificial intelligence use in medicine and health services. It addresses the main challenges by considering fundamental principles of medical ethics, including confidentiality, privacy, compassion, veracity and fidelity. Finally, the authors discuss the ethical implications of involvement of artificial intelligence agents in patient care by expanding on communication skills in a case-based approach. The book is of great interest to ethicists, medical professionals, academicians, engineers and scientists working with artificial intelligence.

This Element is a survey of the field of pathographies of mental illness. It explores classic texts in the field as well as other selected contemporary memoirs. In doing so, the reader is introduced to psychiatric information about various mental illnesses through a narrative lens, emphasizing experience. Because clinical research is evidenced-based and aims to produce generalizable knowledge (i.e., trends), the reading of pathographies can complement these findings with practical experiential insights. By pairing psychiatric information with pathographies, certain personal themes become apparent that are different from the empirical trends identified by scientific and medical researchers. Based on the survey presented here, this Element identifies seven such themes, laying the foundation for future research, inquiry, practice, and policy.

This book offers new essays exploring concepts and applications of nonideal theory in bioethics. Nonideal theory refers to an analytic approach to moral and political philosophy (especially in relation to justice), according to which we should not assume that there will be perfect compliance with principles, that there will be favorable circumstances for just institutions and right action, or that reasoners are capable of being impartial. Nonideal theory takes the world as it actually is, in all of its imperfections. Bioethicists have called for greater attention to how nonideal theory can serve as a guide in the messy realities they face daily. Although many bioethicists implicitly assume nonideal theory in their work, there is the need for more explicit engagement with this theoretical outlook. A nonideal approach to bioethics would start by examining the sociopolitical realities of healthcare and the embeddedness of moral actors in those realities. How are bioethicists to navigate systemic injustices when completing research, giving guidance for patient care, and contributing to medical and public health policies? When there are no good options and when moral agents are enmeshed in their sociopolitical viewpoints, how should moral theorizing proceed? What do bioethical issues and principles look like from the perspective of historically marginalized persons? These are just a few of the questions that motivate nonideal theory within bioethics. This book begins in Part I with an overview of the foundational tenets of nonideal theory, what nonideal theory can offer bioethics, and why it may be preferable to ideal theory in addressing moral dilemmas in the clinic and beyond. In Part II, authors discuss applications of nonideal theory in many areas of bioethics, including reflections on environmental harms, racism and minority health, healthcare injustices during incarceration and detention, and other vulnerabilities experienced by patients from clinical and public health perspectives. The chapters within each section demonstrate the breadth in scope that nonideal theory encompasses, bringing together diverse theorists and approaches into one collection.

This book comprehensively reviews the anatomy, physiology, genetics and pathology of laboratory animals as well as the principles and practices of using laboratory animals for biomedical research.It covers the design of buildings used for laboratory animals, quality control of laboratory animals, and toxicology, and discusses various animal models used for human diseases. It also highlights aspects, such as handling and restraint and administration of drugs, as well as breeding and feeding of laboratory animals, and provides guidelines for developing meaningful experiments using laboratory animals.Further, the book discusses various alternatives to animal experiments for drug and chemical testing, including their advantages over the current approaches. Lastly, it examines the potential effect of harmful pathogens on the physiology of laboratory animals and discusses the state of art in in vivo imaging techniques.The book is a useful resource for research scientists, laboratory animal veterinarians, and students of laboratory animal medicine.

This book provides a brief introduction to the growing field of animal maltreatment evaluation and treatment, with a special emphasis on clinical training from a forensic psychology perspective. Geared toward mental health practitioners, students, and educators, this broad overview focuses on foundational legal concepts, applications in clinical and psycholegal settings, and emerging perspectives on effective evaluation and treatment. The authors provide practical guidance around "real world" scenarios through the use of clinical case vignettes, highlighting the complexities and need for culturally- and psychologically-informed care in these cases. Key topics include forensic animal maltreatment evaluations (or FAMEs); implications for best practices; challenges for providers, trainees, and supervisors; and future directions for the field.

This open access book offers insights in short- and long-term experiences from families with bone marrow transplantations between minor siblings. It is based on the first extended qualitative study with 17 families about experiences with recent transplants and experiences with transplants up to 20 years in the past. It covers reflections of donors, recipients and other family members, as well as family interactions. Transplantation of bone marrow from one sibling to another who is ill with a blood cancer (such as Leukemia) is a life-saving therapy. Young children however are not in a position to give consent themselves. How should they be adequately included, depending to their age? Which ethical questions are raised for the parents both at the time of treatment and afterwards, and for the medical professionals in clinical and regulatory contexts? For an in-depth discussion of the findings the books brings together a group of leading scholars from the fields of bioethics, family sociology and philosophy of medicine.

The panorama of bioethical problems is different today. Patients travel to Thailand for fast surgery; commercial surrogate mothers in India deliver babies to parents in rich countries; organs, body parts and tissues are trafficked from East to Western Europe; physicians and nurses migrating from Africa to the U.S; thousands of children or patients with malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS are dying each day because they cannot afford effective drugs that are too expensive. Mainstream bioethics as it has developed during the last 50 years in Western countries is evolving into a broader approach that is relevant for people across the world and is focused on new global problems. This book provides an introduction into the new field of global bioethics. Addressing these problems requires a broader vision of bioethics that not only goes beyond the current emphasis on individual autonomy, but that criticizes the social, economic and political context that is producing the problems at global level. This book argues that global bioethics is a necessity because the social, economic and environmental effects of globalization require critical responses. Global bioethics is not a finished product that can simply be applied to solve global problems, but it is the ongoing result of interaction and exchange between local practices and global discourse. It combines recognition of differences and respect for cultural diversity with convergence towards common perspectives and shared values. The book examines the nature of global problems as well as the type of responses that are needed, in order to exemplify the substance of global bioethics. It discusses the ethical frameworks that are available for global discourse and shows how these are transformed into global governance mechanisms and practices.

This volume brings together a unique collection of legal, religious, ethical, and political perspectives to bear on debates concerning biotechnology patents, or 'patents on life'. The ever-increasing importance of biotechnologies has generated continual questions about how intellectual property law should treat such technologies, especially those raising ethical or social-justice concerns. Even after many years and court decisions, important contested issues remain concerning ownership of and rewards from biotechnology - from human genetic material to genetically engineered plants - and regarding the scope of moral or social-justice limitations on patents or licensing practices. This book explores a range of related issues, including questions concerning morality and patentability, biotechnology and human dignity, and what constitute fair rewards from genetic resources. It features high-level international, interfaith, and cross-disciplinary contributions from experts in law, religion, and ethics, including academics and practitioners, placing religious and secular perspectives into dialogue to examine the full implications of patenting life.

Environmental issues are an ever-increasing focus of public discourse and have proved concerning to religious groups as well as society more widely. Among biblical scholars, criticism of the Judeo-Christian tradition for its part in the worsening crisis has led to a small but growing field of study on ecology and the Bible. This volume in the Oxford Handbook series makes a significant contribution to this burgeoning interest in ecological hermeneutics, incorporating the best of international scholarship on ecology and the Bible. The Handbook comprises 30 individual essays on a wide range of relevant topics by established and emerging scholars. Arranged in four sections, the volume begins with a historical overview before tackling some key methodological issues. The second, substantial, section comprises thirteen essays offering detailed exegesis from an ecological perspective of selected biblical books. This is followed by a section exploring broader thematic topics such as the Imago Dei and stewardship. Finally, the volume concludes with a number of essays on contemporary perspectives and applications, including political and ethical considerations. The editors Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris have drawn on their experience in Hebrew Bible and New Testament respectively to bring together a diverse and engaging collection of essays on a subject of immense relevance. Its accessible style, comprehensive scope, and range of material means that the volume is a valuable resource, not only to students and scholars of the Bible but also to religious leaders and practitioners.

Increasing quantities of information about our health, bodies, and biological relationships are being generated by health technologies, research, and surveillance. This escalation presents challenges to us all when it comes to deciding how to manage this information and what should be disclosed to the very people it describes. This book establishes the ethical imperative to take seriously the potential impacts on our identities of encountering bioinformation about ourselves. Emily Postan argues that identity interests in accessing personal bioinformation are currently under-protected in law and often linked to problematic bio-essentialist assumptions. Drawing on a picture of identity constructed through embodied self-narratives, and examples of people's encounters with diverse kinds of information, Postan addresses these gaps. This book provides a robust account of the source, scope, and ethical significance of our identity-related interests in accessing - and not accessing - bioinformation about ourselves, and the need for disclosure practices to respond appropriately. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Dictionary presents a broad range of topics relevant in present-day global bioethics. With more than 500 entries, this dictionary covers organizations working in the field of global bioethics, international documents concerning bioethics, personalities that have played a role in the development of global bioethics, as well as specific topics in the field.The book is not only useful for students and professionals in global health activities, but can also serve as a basic tool that explains relevant ethical notions and terms. The dictionary furthers the ideals of cosmopolitanism: solidarity, equality, respect for difference and concern with what human beings- and specifically patients - have in common, regardless of their backgrounds, hometowns, religions, gender, etc. Global problems such as pandemic diseases, disasters, lack of care and medication, homelessness and displacement call for global responses.This book demonstrates that a moral vision of global health is necessary and it helps to quickly understand the basic ideas of global bioethics.

Metastatic cancer and costly precision medicines generate extremely complex problems of health care justice. Targeted cancer therapies yield only very marginal gains in life expectancy for most patients at very great cost, thereby threatening the just allocation of limited health care resources. Philosophers have high hopes for the utility of their theories of justice in addressing the challenges of resource allocation; however, none of these theories can address adequately the "wicked" ethical problems that have resulted from these targeted therapies. What we need instead, bioethicist Leonard M. Fleck argues, is a political conception of health care justice, following Rawls, and a fair and inclusive process of rational democratic deliberation governed by public reason. His account makes the basic assumption that we have only limited health care resources to meet unlimited health care needs generated by emerging medical technologies. The primary ethical and political virtue of rational democratic deliberation is that it allows citizens to fashion autonomously shared understandings of how to fairly address the complex problems of health care justice generated by precision medicine. While ideally just outcomes are a moral and political impossibility, "wicked" problems can metastasize if rationing decisions are made invisibly-in ways effectively hidden from those affected by those decisions. As Fleck demonstrates, a fair and inclusive process of democratic deliberation could make these "wicked" problems visible, and subject, to public reason.

This Open Access book illustrates the power of stories to illuminate ethical concerns that arise in public health. It complements epidemiological or surveillance evidence, and reveals stakeholder perspectives crucial for public health practitioners to develop effective and ethical public health interventions. Because it relies on the natural and universal appeal of stories, the book also serves to introduce the field of public health to students considering a career in public health. The opening section of the book also serves as a more didactic introduction to public health ethics and the field of narrative ethics. It describes the field of public health ethics including ethical principles relevant to public health practice and research, and the advantages of a narrative ethics approach. That approach explores the problems and the ethical challenges of public health from the inside, from the perspective of those experiencing health problems to the challenges of those who must address these problems. The later sections consist of 14 chapters that present the actual stories of these public health problems and challenges. In narrative style they range from first person narratives of both practitioners and citizens, to analysis of published short stories. The problems and challenges they address include issues relating to justice concerns, surveillance and stigma, community values and the value of community, trust and the value of information, and freedom and responsibility. Specific public health topics include resource allocation, restricting liberty to protect the community from health threats, and the health impact of trauma, addiction, obesity and health disparities.

This book fills a gap in the literature on the Precautionary Principle by placing the principle within the wider context of precautionary reasoning and uses philosophical arguments and case studies to demonstrate when it does-and does not-apply. The book invites the reader to take a step back from the controversy surrounding the Precautionary Principle and consider the overarching rationales for responding to threats to the environment or public health. It provides practical guidance and probing insight for the intended audience, including scholars, students, journalists, and policymakers.

This book configures a consistent epistemology of biolaw that distinguishes itself from bioethics and from a mere set of international instruments on the regulation of biomedical practices. Such orthodox intellection has prevented biolaw from being understood as a new branch of law with legally binding force, which has certainly dwindled its epistemological density. Hence, this is a revolutionary book as it seeks to deconstruct the history of biolaw and its oblique epistemologies, which means not accepting perennial axioms, and not seeing paradigms where only anachronism and anomaly still exist. It is a book aimed at validity, but also at solidity because the truth of biolaw has never been told before. In that sense, it is also a revealing text. The book shapes biolaw as an independent and compelling branch of law, with a legally binding scope, which boosts the effectiveness of new deliberative models for legal sciences, as well as it utterly reinforces hermeneutical and epistemological approaches, in tune with the complexity of disturbing legal scenarios created by biomedical sciences' latest applications. This work adeptly addresses the origins of the European biolaw and its connections with American bioethics. It also analyses different biolaw's epistemologies historically developed both in Europe and in the United States, to finally offer a new conception of biolaw as a new branch of law, by exploring its theoretical and practical atmospheres to avoid muddle and uncertainty when applied in biomedical settings. This book is suitable for academics and students of biolaw, law, bioethics, and biomedical research, as well as for professionals in higher education institutions, courts, the biomedical industry, and pharmacological companies.

This open access book reflects on matters of social and ethical concern raised in the daily practices of those working in and around precision oncology. Each chapter addresses the experiences, concerns and issues at stake for people who work in settings where precision oncology is practiced, enacted, imagined or discussed. It subsequently discusses and analyses bioethical dilemmas, scientific challenges and economic trade-offs, the need for new policies, further technological innovation, social work, as well as phenomenological research. This volume takes a broad actor-centred perspective as, whenever cancer is present, the range of actors with issues at stake appears almost unlimited. This perspective and approach opens up the possibility for further in-depth and diverse questions, posed by the actors themselves, such as: How are cancer researchers navigating biological uncertainties? How do clinicians and policy-makers address ethical dilemmas around prioritisation of care? What are the patients' experiences with, and hopes for, precision oncology? How do policy-makers and entrepreneurs envisage precision oncology? These questions are of great interest to a broad audience, including cancer researchers, oncologists, policy-makers, medical ethicists and philosophers, social scientists, patients and health economists.

This book charts technological developments from an African ethical perspective. It explores the idea that while certain technologies have benefited Africans, the fact that these technologies were designed and produced in and for a different setting leads to conflicts with African ethical values. Written in a simple and engaging style, the authors apply an African ethical lens to themes such as: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the moral status of technology, technology and sexual relations, and bioethics and technology.

Are scientists playing God? Are the artificial reproductive technologies helpful or hazardous? Should human embryos ever be used for research? How do we cope with people who are mentally ill? Is someone in a persistent vegetative state still alive? How should we treat those with dementia? Questions like these are all around us. They affect ordinary people, who often feel ill equipped to respond to them. No one seems to have adequate answers. Do Christians have answers?In this book, aimed at the general reader, Professor Gareth Jones considers a range of topics ranging all the way from early embryos through to old age. While he concentrates on bioethical issues in the West, he is deeply concerned at the huge disparity in mortality and quality of life in different parts of the world. He also asks how Christians can best contribute to the discussion of bioethical issues within pluralist societies.Professor Jones is never afraid to face unpalatable issues head-on, and provide ways forward. He invites people to enter debates that we avoid at our peril. The book deals from beginning of life, early life, middle life and end of life issues.

Issues concerning patients' rights are at the center of bioethics, but the political basis for these rights has rarely been examined. In "Bioethics in a Liberal Society: The Political Framework of Bioethics Decision Making," Thomas May offers a compelling analysis of how the political context of liberal constitutional democracy shapes the rights and obligations of both patients and health care professionals. May focuses on how a key feature of liberal society--namely, an individual's right to make independent decisions--has an impact on the most important relational facets of health care, such as patients' autonomy and professionals' rights of conscience.

Although a liberal political framework protects individual judgments, May asserts that this right is based on the assumption of an individual's competency to make sound decisions. May uses case studies to examine society's approach to medical decision making when, for reasons ranging from age to severe mental disorder, a person lacks sufficient competency to make independent and fully informed choices. To protect the autonomy of these vulnerable patients, May emphasizes the need for health care ethics committees and ethics consultants to help guide the decision-making process in clinical settings. "Bioethics in a Liberal Society" is essential reading for all those interested in understanding how bioethics is practiced within our society.

This book offers a unique description of how phenomenology can help professionals from medical, environmental and social fields to explore notions such as interaffectivity, empathy, epoche, reduction, and intersubjective encounter. Written by a group of top scholars, it uniquely covers the relationship between phenomenology and bioethics, and focuses not only on medical cases, but also on the environment and emerging technologies. This variety of themes, whilst including techno-ethics, environmental ethics, animal ethics, and medical ethics, is conducive to appreciating broadly how phenomenology can improve our quality of our life. Despite its difficult themes, the book appeals to an audience of both academics and professionals who are willing to understand how to increase the quality of care in their professional field. Chapter 8 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.