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Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
The abortion debate is a longstanding, ongoing controversy that touches on the moral, legal, medical, and religious aspects of induced abortion. In English-speaking countries, the debate most visibly polarizes around adherents of the self-described "pro-choice" and "pro-life" movements. Pro-choice supporters uphold that individuals have the right to make their own decisions about their reproductive health, and that they should have the option to end a pregnancy if they choose to do so, taking into account various factors such as the stage of fetal development, the health of the woman, and the circumstances of the conception. Pro-life advocates, on the other hand, maintain that a fetus is a human being with inherent rights that cannot be overridden by the woman's choice or circumstances, and that abortion is morally wrong in most or all cases. Both terms are considered loaded words in mainstream media, where terms such as "abortion rights" or "anti-abortion" are generally preferred.
William Francis Baxter, Jr. was a law professor at Stanford University. His specialty was antitrust law.
In religion and philosophy, ensoulment is the moment at which a human or other being gains a soul. Some belief systems maintain that a soul is newly created within a developing child; others, especially in religions that believe in reincarnation, believe that the soul is pre-existing and enters the body at a particular stage of development.
Prenatal development involves the development of the embryo and of the fetus during a viviparous animal's gestation. Prenatal development starts with fertilization, in the germinal stage of embryonic development, and continues in fetal development until birth.
Julian Savulescu is an Australian philosopher and bioethicist. He is Chen Su Lan Centennial Professor in Medical Ethics and director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at National University of Singapore. He was previously Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities. He is visiting professorial fellow in Biomedical Ethics at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia, and distinguished visiting professor in law at Melbourne University since 2017. He directs the Biomedical Ethics Research Group and is a member of the Centre for Ethics of Pediatric Genomics in Australia. He is a former editor and current board member of the Journal of Medical Ethics, which is ranked as the No.2 journal in bioethics worldwide by Google Scholar Metrics, as of 2022. In addition to his background in applied ethics and philosophy, he also has a background in medicine and neuroscience and completed his MBBS (Hons) and BMedSc at Monash University, graduating top of his class with 18 of 19 final year prizes in Medicine. He edits the Oxford University Press book series, the Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics.
A Defense of Abortion is a moral philosophy essay by Judith Jarvis Thomson first published in Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1971. Granting for the sake of argument that the fetus has a right to life, Thomson uses thought experiments to argue that the right to life does not include, entail, or imply the right to use someone else's body to survive and that induced abortion is therefore morally permissible. Thomson's argument has critics on both sides of the abortion debate, but it continues to receive defense. Despite criticism, "A Defense of Abortion" remains highly influential.
Fetal rights are the moral rights or legal rights of the human fetus under natural and civil law. The term fetal rights came into wide usage after Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that legalized abortion in the United States and was essentially overturned in 2022. The concept of fetal rights has evolved to include the issues of maternal substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder and opioid use disorder. Most international human rights charters "clearly reject claims that human rights should attach from conception or any time before birth." While most international human rights instruments lack a universal inclusion of the fetus as a person for the purposes of human rights, the fetus is granted various rights in the constitutions and civil codes of some countries.
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Antinatalism or anti-natalism is a philosophical view that deems procreation to be unethical. Antinatalists thus argue that humans should abstain from having children. Some antinatalists consider coming into existence to always be a serious harm. Their views are not necessarily limited only to humans but may encompass all sentient creatures, arguing that coming into existence is a serious harm for sentient beings in general.
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A fetus or foetus is the unborn offspring that develops from a mammal embryo. Following embryonic development, the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal development begins from the ninth week after fertilization and continues until the birth of a newborn. Prenatal development is a continuum, with no clear defining feature distinguishing an embryo from a fetus. However, a fetus is characterized by the presence of all the major body organs, though they will not yet be fully developed and functional and some not yet situated in their final anatomical location.
David DeGrazia is an American moral philosopher specializing in bioethics, animal ethics, and the study of moral status. He is Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1989, and the author or editor of several books on ethics, including Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status (1996), Human Identity and Bioethics (2005), and Creation Ethics: Reproduction, Genetics, and Quality of Life (2012).
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Maternal-fetal conflict, also known as obstetric conflict, occurs when a pregnant individual's (maternal) interests conflict with the interests of the fetus. Legal and ethical considerations involving women's rights and the rights of the fetus as a patient and future child, have become more complicated with advances in medicine and technology. Maternal-fetal conflict can occur in situations where the mother denies health recommendations that can benefit the fetus or make life choices that can harm the fetus. There are maternal-fetal conflict situations where the law becomes involved, but most physicians avoid involving the law for various reasons.
Embryo loss is the death of an embryo at any stage of its development which in humans, is between the second through eighth week after fertilization. Failed development of an embryo often results in the disintegration and assimilation of its tissue in the uterus, known as embryo resorption. Loss during the stages of prenatal development after organogenesis of the fetus generally results in the similar process of fetal resorption or miscarriage. Embryo loss often happens without an awareness of pregnancy, and an estimated 40 to 60% of all embryos do not survive.
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is ontologically or metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without purpose. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. Their responses to the condition of life are widely varied. Philosophical pessimists usually do not advocate for suicide as a solution to the human predicament; though many favour the adoption of antinatalism, that is, non-procreation.
References
- ↑ "Bonnie Steinbock". Chinese University of Hong Kong.
- ↑ The Hastings Center Archived 2016-05-09 at the Wayback Machine Hastings Center Fellows. Accessed November 6, 2010
- ↑ "Prof. Bonnie Steinbock, SUNY, Albany". The New York Times. November 6, 2005.
- ↑ Steinbock, Bonnie (1992). Life Before Birth . New York: Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-505494-1.
- ↑ Steinbock, Bonnie (1992). Life Before Birth . New York: Oxford University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-19-505494-1.
- ↑ Steinbock, Bonnie (1992). Life Before Birth . New York: Oxford University Press. pp. IX–X. ISBN 978-0-19-505494-1.
- ↑ Višak, Tatjana; Garner, Robert. (2016). The Ethics of Killing Animals. Oxford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0199396085
