Medical or hio- ethics has in recent years been a growth industry. Journals, Centers and Associations devoted to the subject proliferate. Medical schools seem increasingly to be filling rare positions in the humanities and social sciences with ethicists. Hardly a day passes without some media scrutiny of one or another ethical dilemma resulting from our new-found ability to transform the natural conditions of life. Although bioethics is a self-consciously interdisciplinary field, it has not attracted the collaboration of many social scientists. In fact, social scientists who specialize in the study of medicine have in many cases watched its development with a certain ambivalence. No one disputes the significance and often the painfulness of the issues and choices being addressed. But there is something about the way these issues are usually handled which seems somehow inappropri ate if not wrong-headed to one trained in a discipline like sociology or history. In their analyses of complex situations, ethicists often appear grandly oblivious to the social and cultural context in which these occur, and indeed to empirical referents of any sort. Nor do they seem very conscious of the cultural specificity of many of the values and procedures they utilize when making ethical judg ments. The unease felt by many in the social sciences was given articulate expression in a paper by Renee Fox and Judith Swazey which appeared in 1984."

Where do a doctor's responsibilities lie in communicating diagnostic and predictive genetic information to a patient's family members? On the one hand, a patient may wish to retain confidentiality while the relatives seek information; on the other, a patient may wish to share the information while the relatives would rather not know. This volume investigates the doctor's professional legal and ethical obligations in the context of these two familial tensions. The examination is conducted within the liberal-communitarian debate, whereby the two philosophies hold different perceptions of the individual and the relationship he or she has with others. Within this theoretical framework, the book examines the approach taken by English medical law and ethics to the communication of genetic information to family members. Legally, the focus is on tort law and the law of confidentiality. Ethically, it concentrates on the approach taken by the bioethical literature, and more specifically by codes of ethics and professional guidelines.

It is difficult to think of an example of an advancement in the biological sciences that has had an impact on society similar to that of the new genetics. Recent developments in biotechnology have occasioned much discussion among academics, professionals, and lay people alike. In particular, many questions and concerns have arisen over the acquisi tion, access, and control of genetic information. There are several reasons why the new genetics has commanded such widespread attention, and why it is now the subject of con siderable debate. Special reference is given in this volume to the implications of genetic information for five different subject areas: eugenics, the insurance industry, the commer cialisation of genetic testing, strategies for raising public awareness, and the value of theo retical ethical and sociological frameworks in the debate. This diverse collection of papers attempts to address and critically discuss issues surrounding the control of, and access to, genetic information from ethical, medical, legal, and theoretical points of view. The first and shortest section of the book attempts to address concerns over the eugenic potential of new biotechnologies. It also provides a historical context for the de bate, for controversy over the subject of eugenics predates the current debate over genetic information by a considerable length of time. Indeed, by the time the first patent was is sued for Chakrabarty's strain of oil eating bacteria in the early 1970s, the term eugenics had already acquired strong pejorative connotations."

The ethics of sports medicine is an important emerging area within biomedical ethics. The professionalisation of medical support services in sport and continuing debates around issues such as performance-enhancing technologies or the health and welfare of athletes mean that all practitioners in sport, as well as researchers with an interest in sports ethics, need to develop a clear understanding of the ethical aspects of the sport-medicine nexus. In this timely collection of articles, sports ethicist Mike McNamee and other leading international scholars explore the conceptual and practical issues that shape and define ethics in sports medicine. Examining central topics such as consent, confidentiality, pain, doping and genetic technology, this book establishes an important baseline for future academic and professional work in this area.

In 1976, five years after his death, serious charges were leveled against the distinguished British scientist Sir Cyril Burt. His research on the nature of intelligence was challenged as fraudulent by a number of respected commentators, among them Leon Kamin, Oliver Gillie, Ann and Alan Clarke, and Leslie Hearnshaw. The evidence they marshaled, and the charges themselves are examined here in scrupulous detail. Written as a straightforward defense of Burt, this volume also tells a second story: the intrusion of the mass media into science, the power of the new media, and the success of this invasion, which threatens to replace intellectual authority.

Convinced that a great injustice had been done, Fletcher examines each of the charges in detail, subjecting each of Burt's detractors to a symbolic cross-examination. He exposes carelessness and errors of interpretation, and reveals areas of evidence the critics failed to take into account. Each interrogation ends with a list of questions that call for clear public answer. Fletcher's closing argument calls for the restoration of Burt's reputation, so that justice is done.

The broader significance of this case study goes far beyond the Burt controversy itself, and has implications for the conduct of science in an increasingly contentious social environment. Fletcher describes how ideology, in alliance with a receptive popular journalism and the media, is able to establish itself as a powerful third force in scientific discourse. The Burt Affair demonstrates what happens when the media establish a viewpoint that permeates not only the scientific community, but also entrenches that perspective so thoroughly in public understanding that its assumptions are not even questioned.

This textbook provides a brief history of human experimentation and reviews various theories of ethics from which the principles and rules that govern this research are derived. All relevant international documents and national regulations, policies and memoranda are referred to extensively to assist in addressing issues that regularly arise during the course of research involving human subjects. It includes case examples and exercises and is of interest to students and experienced researchers.

With the rapid rise in bioengineering, bio-technology, bio-scientific economics, research commercialism, and the unraveling of genetic mysteries, many clinical and laboratory situations arise that bring bio-ethical urgencies to the forefront. Based on the author's years of teaching and private and hospital practice, Bioethics' Rise, Decline, and Fall offers guiding conclusions to today's medical quandaries.

Genetic screening technologies involving pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) raise particular issues about selective reproduction and the welfare of the child to be born. How does selection impact on the identity of the child who is born? Are children who are selected for a particular purpose harmed or treated as commodities? How far should the state interfere with parents' reproductive choices? Currently, concerns about the welfare of the child in selective reproduction have focused on the individual interests of the child to be born. This book re-evaluates the welfare of the child through the controversial topic of saviour sibling selection. Drawing on relational feminist and communitarian ethics, Michelle Taylor-Sands argues that the welfare of the child to be born is inextricably linked with the welfare of his/her family. The author proposes a relational model for selective reproduction based on a broad conception of the welfare of the child that includes both individual and collective family interests. By comparing regulation in the UK and Australia, the book maps out how law and policy might support a relational model for saviour sibling selection. With an interdisciplinary focus, Saviour Siblings: A Relational Approach to the Welfare of the Child in Selective Reproduction will be of particular interest to academics and students of bioethics and law as well as practitioners and policymakers concerned with the ethics of selective reproduction.

This book examines the question of what parental obligations procreators incur by bringing children into being. Prusak argues that parents, as procreators, have obligations regarding future children that constrain the liberty of would-be parents to do as they wish. Moreover, these obligations go beyond simply respecting a child's rights. He addresses in turn the ethics of adoption, child support, gamete donation, surrogacy, prenatal genetic enhancement, and public responsibility for children.

This book delves into risks that can easily bedevil any psychotherapist and what can happen if they are ignored. Dramatic storytelling, based on actual incidents from the author's experiences as a member of ethics committees and as an ethics teacher and consultant, explores actions prompting clients to issue formal complaints. Set in the context of an ethics committee meeting over the course of a weekend, twelve psychologists face their peers who will stand in judgment. Issues include the fallout from losing one's temper with a difficult client, a personal disclosure gone terribly wrong, a bartering arrangement that literally falls apart, a private life revealed in a most public way, a vengeful act that sullies the reputation of an entire department, breaking confidentiality when a client threatened harm, and the slippery slope to sexual exploitation. The stories are absorbing, enlightening, sometimes shocking, and often stranger than fiction. Narrative nonfiction puts human faces and emotions on what would otherwise be cursory statistics. What led to the formal complaint from both the vantage point of the complainant and the psychologist offers insights not otherwise available unless the dynamics of their private lives leading up to the conflict are revealed. An author's commentary and discussion questions follow every story. Both new and seasoned practitioners, as well as those still in training, will find this to be an invaluable resource.

Many counselors learn about ethics in graduate school by applying formal, step-by-step ethical decision-making models that require counselors to be aware of their values and refrain from imposing personal values that might harm clients. However, in the real world, counselors often make split-second ethical decisions based upon personal values. Values and Ethics in Counseling illustrates the ways in which ethical decisions are values-but more than that, it guides counselors through the process of examining their own values and analyzing how these values impact ethical decision making. Each chapter presents ethical decision making as what it is: a very personal, values-laden process, one that is most effectively illustrated through the real-life stories of counselors at various stages of professional development-from interns to seasoned clinicians-who made value-based decisions. Each story is followed by commentary from the author as well as analysis from the editors to contextualize the material and encourage reflection.

New Harvest includes contributions from specialists in medical, philosophical, psychological, religious, and legal fields. These essays are not simply a collection, but were developed from a single conception of the four ethical concerns of trans plan tation described in the first chapter. The indi vid ual chapters are all parts of a structure unified by the search for ethical foundations basic to the four concerns. Transplantation is surrounded by a great deal of under standable emotional sensitivi ty. The authors trust that words like "procurement," "harvest," and possibly other expressions found in this book will not offend. We use the current lan but do so with objectivity and respect for those who guage, are personally involved in transplantation. We have made room for, and indeed have invited, different and sometimes conflicting points of view on the complicated ethical ques tions raised by transplant operations. We can not assume that there is one right answer to these questions, at least at our present level of scientific knowledge and ethical wisdom. We do not presume to have identified and analyzed all the ethical questions raised with equal thoroughness. There are four ways in which the scope of the book is limited. Identifying these limitations also helps designate what it is in its own right. First, some questions have been given more attention than others."

This volume in "The SAGE Reference Series on Disability "explores ethical, legal, and policy issues of people with disabilities, and is one of eight volumes in the cross-disciplinary and issues-based series, which examines topics central to the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. With a balance of history, theory, research, and application, specialists set out the findings and implications of research and practice for others whose current or future work involves the care and/or study of those with disabilities, as well as for the disabled themselves. The presentational style (concise and engaging) emphasizes accessibility. Taken individually, each volume sets out the fundamentals of the topic it addresses, accompanied by compiled data and statistics, recommended further readings, a guide to organizations and associations, and other annotated resources, thus providing the ideal introductory platform and gateway for further study. Taken together, the series represents both a survey of major disability issues and a guide to new directions and trends and contemporary resources in the field as a whole.

"A remarkable collection of scholarly essays, philosophical discussions, and ethical arguments concerning reproductive choices."
--"Choice"

It seems as if every week there is a new case involving reproductive technologies that raises provocative, often painful questions: What policies should be followed by centers that preserve human embryos? Are such innovations as Norplant improvements over established methods of contraception? Should R.U. 486 be available in the U.S.? Is prenatal diagnosis an ethically acceptable step to limiting the number of disabled people?

These are just some of the vital questions explored in this timely work which offers incisive analysis of the plethora of issues raised by advances in reproductive medicine. The book's major section cover abortion, contraception, cryopreservation of gametes and embryos, surrogate motherhood, and psychosocial issues of in-vitro fertilization.

In each section, introductory essays by recognized authorities such as Elizabeth Bartholet and Andrea L. Bonnicksen are followed by critical articles by professionals in such fields as women's health, medicine, biology, sociology, politics, and philosophy. In assessing a technology, the authors present well-argued analyses of problems created by that technology, including views from advocates and practitioners that raise attendant ethical and practical issues.

Provides up-to-date coverage of current thinking on rationing. The first part of the book consists of a series of debates between leading authorities putting forward their views for and against some of the most controversial issues in healthcare, such as rationing by age, and the role of central government. The second part makes suggestions for action, drawing comparisons with health care systems overseas, on the ethical uses of resources, the rationing of drugs by hospitals, and the role of citizens' juries. The book should be of interest to healthcare workers, managers, public health physicians and health economists.

This volume is an exploration of the ethical issues raised by health insurance, which is particularly timely in the light of recent advances in medical research and political economy. Focusing on a wide range of areas, such as AIDS, genetic engineering, screening and underwriting, new disability legislation and the ethics of private and public health insurance, this comprehensive and sometimes controversial book provides an essential survey of the key issues in health insurance. Divided into two parts, the first considers the ethics of underwriting, risk assessment and the acceptance and refusal of insurance risk by insurers. Discussing the unjust treatment of high-risk applicants, the authors identify sources of unfairness to both parties of the insurance contract, indicating how reasonable trade-offs can be made. The second part considers the argument for a mix of public and private insurance for acute and long-term care, offering recommendations for changes in the balance of social insurance, and discussing the shift toward long-term contracts in private health care and pension insurance.

Drawn from the popular "Narrative Matters" column in the journal Health Affairs, these essays embody a vision for a health care system that centers the humanity of patients and doctors alike. Health care decision making affects patients and families first and foremost, yet their perspectives are not always factored into health policy deliberations and discussions. In this anthology, Jessica Bylander brings together the personal stories of the patients, physicians, caregivers, policy makers, and others whose writings add much-needed human context to health care decision making. Drawn from the popular "Narrative Matters" column in the leading health policy journal Health Affairs, this collection features essays by some of the leading minds in health care today, including Pulitzer Prize-winner Siddhartha Mukherjee, MacArthur fellow Diane Meier, former Planned Parenthood president Leana S. Wen, and former secretary of health and human services Louis W. Sullivan. The collection also presents important stories from lesser-known voices, including a transgender doctor in Oklahoma who calls for better treatment of trans patients and a palliative care physician who reflects on how perspectives on hastening death have changed in recent years. A foreword written by National Humanities Medal recipient Abraham Verghese, MD, further rounds out the book. The collection of thirty-two essays is organized around several themes: * the practice of medicine * medical innovation and research * patient-centered care * the doctor-patient relationship * disparities and discrimination * aging and end-of-life care * maternity and childbirth * opioids and substance abuse Contributors: Louise Aronson, Laura Arrowsmith, Cheryl Bettigole, Cindy Brach, Gary Epstein-Lubow, Jonathan Friedlaender, Patricia Gabow, Katti Gray, Yasmin Sokkar Harker, Timothy Hoff, Carla Keirns, Raya Elfadel Kheirbek, Katy B. Kozhimannil, Pooja Lagisetty, Maria Maldonado, Maureen A. Mavrinac, Diane E. Meier, Dina Keller Moss, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Travis N. Rieder, Aroonsiri Sangarlangkarn, Elaine Schattner, Janice Lynch Schuster, Myrick C. Shinall, Gayathri Subramanian, Louis W. Sullivan, Gautham K. Suresh, Abraham Verghese, Otis Warren, Leana S. Wen, Charlotte Yeh

Susan Sontag once described illness as "the night-side of life." When we or our loved ones fall ill, our world is thrown into darkness and disarray, our routines are interrupted, our deepest beliefs shaken. The modern regime of hyper-logical biomedicine offers little solace when it comes to the effects of ill health on our inner lives. By exploring the role of desire in illness, Eros and Illness offers an alternative: an unconventional, deeply human exploration of what it means to live with, and live through, disease. When we face down illness, something beyond biomedicine's extremely valuable advances in treatment and prevention is sorely needed. Desire in its many guises plays a crucial part in illness, David Morris shows. Emotions, dreams, and stories-even romance and eroticism-shape our experiences as patients and as caregivers. Our perception of the world we enter through illness-including too often a world of pain-is shaped by desire. Writing from his own heartbreaking experience as a caretaker for his wife, Morris relates how desire can worsen or, with care, mitigate the heavy weight of disease. He looks to myths, memoirs, paintings, performances, and narratives to understand how illness is intertwined with the things we value most dearly. Drawing on cultural resources from many centuries and media, Eros and Illness reaches out a hand to guide us through the long night of illness, showing us how to find productive desire where we expected only despair and defeat.

This book will help practicing mental health professionals understand the sometimes intricate responsibility of breaching clinical confidentiality when clients become dangerous to themselves or others. It examines the basis for clinical confidentiality, presents methods for the evaluation of client dangerousness, and proposes legally and ethically permissible methods to breach confidentiality. The Danger-to-Self-or-Others Exception to Confidentiality contains case-law updates which should help practitioners with situations that require the breach of confidentiality. This text strives to clear up some of the confusing issues surrounding suicide evaluation, death with dignity, inherently dangerous populations, and the role of client commitment in the breach-of-confidentiality process. Ahia also discusses two important concepts - informed consent and privileged communication - as they relate to the rights of clients.

The field of global health is expanding rapidly. An increasing number of trainees are studying and working with marginalized populations, often within low and middle-income countries. Such endeavours are beset by ethical dilemmas: mitigating power differentials, addressing cultural differences in how health and illness are viewed, and obtaining individual and community consent in research. This introductory textbook supports students to understand and work through key areas of concern, assisting them in moving towards a more critical view of global health practise.

Divided into two sections covering the theory and practice of global health ethics, the text begins by looking at definitions of global health and the field s historical context. It draws on anti-colonial and anti-racist perspectives and concepts, developing social justice and solidarity as key principles to guide students. The second part focuses on ethical challenges students may face in clinical experiences or research. Topics such as working with indigenous communities, the politics of global health governance, and the ethical challenges of advocacy are explored using a case study approach. "

An Introduction to Global Health Ethics" includes recommended resources and further readings, and is ideal for students from a range of disciplines including public health, medicine, nursing, law and development studies who are undertaking undergraduate and graduate courses in ethics or placements overseas.

There is currently a lively debate ongoing in society about the nature of trust and the conditions necessary to establish and sustain it. Given the role of trust in bridging uncertainty, it is perhaps not surprising that as our consciousness of risk has increased, the role and nature of trust in social practices has come under growing scrutiny. These developments are particularly relevant to health because participation in health practices is arguably based on and engendered through trust. There is thus a need for empirically based research, which intelligently unravels this complexity to support all stakeholders in the health arena. This multidisciplinary volume of work addresses this gap by contributing substantively to the exploration of trust in the experience, practice and organization of health. It offers an overview of recent scholarship, based on empirical research, which explores the significance of trust in relation to key health-related issues. At the same time, this text examines conceptual themes in relation to trust more generally, including the relationship between trust and auditing, consent, expert knowledges and social capital.

The advancement of the life sciences and the technosciences has enhanced the longevity of citizens in the Western world, and half of the generation born in the first decade of the new millennium is now expected to live to the age of one hundred years. In a society with such longevity and affluence, consumption of health-related goods and services such as pharmaceuticals and scanning procedures may be seen as a sustainable source of income for the industries that promote it. Though the healthcare sector has traditionally been organized in the public sector in Europe and in the private sector in the US, the recent advancement of new therapies and direct-to-consumer marketing have opened up new streams of consumption and revenue for health care goods and services around the globe. This book examines the so-called 'bioeconomy' as a new economic and commercial field that emphasizes the management of individual life, including the regulation and control of weight and food consumption and other issues pertaining to individual well-being. In addition, the bioeconomy includes a variety of practices based on commercial interests such as organ donations, reproductive medicine and technologies, and what has been referred to as the tissue economy - the various forms of trade with human tissues. Author Alexander Styhre provides a thorough introduction to the bioeconomy, exploring this new and unique intersection of the life sciences and the technosciences with more traditional consumer markets.

This exciting book examines how human tissues and cells are being exchanged, commodified and commercialized by new health technologies. Through a discussion of emergent global tissue economies' the author explores the social dynamics of innovation in the fields of tissue engineering and stem cell science. The book explores how regenerative medicine configures and conceptualizes bodies and argues that the development of regenerative medicine is a feminist issue. In Regenerating Bodies, Kent critically examines the transformative potential of regenerative medicine and whether it represents a paradigm shift from more traditional forms of biomedicine. The book shows that users of these technologies are gendered and women's bodies are enrolled in the production of them in particular ways. So what is the value of a feminist bioethics for thinking about the ethical issues at stake? Drawing on extensive qualitative field research, Kent examines the issues around donation, procurement, banking and engineering of human tissues, and presents an analysis of the regulatory and policy debates surrounding these practices within Europe and the UK. The book considers the claims that regenerative medicine represents exciting possibilities for treating the diseases of ageing bodies, critically assessing what kind of futures are embodied in tissue and cell based therapies. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students within the social sciences, in health technology studies, bioethics, feminist studies, and gender and health studies.

Our understanding of gender carries significant bioethical implications. An errant account of gender-specific disease can lead to overgeneralizations, undergeneralizations, and misdiagnoses. It can also lead to problems in the structure of health-care delivery, the creation of policy, and the development of clinical curricula. In this volume, Cutter argues that gender-specific disease and related bioethical discourses are philosophically integrative. Gender-specific disease is integrative because the descriptive roles of gender, disease, and their relation are inextricably tied to their prescriptive roles within frames of reference. An integrative account of gender-specific disease carries ethical implications because our understanding of gender-specific disease is evaluative, and our evaluations of gender-specific disease entail judgments concerning the praiseworthiness and blameworthiness of a clinical event. Cutter supports a "both/and" emphasis on context and integration in relation to gender-specific disease and bioethical analyses. While the text mainly focuses on gender-specific diseases that affect women, Cutter also includes examples involving men, children, and members of the LGBT community.

International illicit trade in human organs is on the increase, fueled by growing demand and unscrupulous traffickers. In order to truly understand the problem of organ trafficking, an analysis should take into account the various perspectives that come into play in this multifaceted issue. With contributions from international scholars and experts, The International Trafficking of Human Organs: A Multidisciplinary Perspective provides a broad-based exploration of this controversial phenomenon. Divided into four parts, the book examines the issue of human organ trafficking from the perspectives of criminal justice, business, medicine, ethics, philosophy, and theology. The book begins by presenting case studies of the trafficking of body parts occurring in the U.S. and Mexico. It examines the increase in organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners and describes widespread instances of trafficking in Europe. Diverse perspectives Next, it examines the economic ramifications of possible legislation of the sale of body parts and discusses other proposals for increasing the supply of kidneys and other organs. It explores ethical issues surrounding the kidney shortage and incentives to promote donation. It also offers arguments for and against compensation for transplant organs from Kantian, Dworkinian, and other perspectives. Lastly, theologians discuss opposing Catholic and Protestant perspectives on the sale of human organs. Learning tools Each chapter provides discussion questions to provoke vigorous debate and references to facilitate further study. The wide-ranging analysis provided by this volume is certain to enhance further inquiry into a disturbing and increasingly prevalent issue.