Bioethics is a field of study which concerns the relationship between biology, science, medicine and ethics, philosophy and theology. Bioethicists analyze which medical treatments or technological innovations are moral, when treatments may or may not be used, etc.
Issues discussed in bioethics include whether or not any of the following are ever permissible, and if permissible, under what circumstances:
- Abortion
- Artificial insemination
- Donating one's sperm or eggs
- Genetic engineering
- The obligation of the individual, community, state and nation to provide health care and/or health insurance.
- Homosexuality
- Human cloning
- When to use, and when to withold, life-support
- When to use, and when to withold, artificial hydration and artificial nutrition
- How to treat infertility
- Organ transplants and Organ donation
- Stem-cell cloning
- Suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia
- The use of surrogate mothers
- Use of nanotechnology and cybernetics within humans
- The advent of artificial wombs
- The treatment of non-human animals
A smaller number of religious scholars from other religions have recently become involved in this field as well. Islamic clerics have begun to write on this topic. Muslim bioethicists include Abdulaziz Sachedina, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There has been some criticism by liberal Muslims that only the more religiously conservative voices in Islam are being heard on this issue.
Table of contents |
2 References (general) 3 Muslim bioethics 4 Jewish Bioethics 5 Christian bioethics |
External links
References (general)
Muslim bioethics
Jewish Bioethics
Christian bioethics
(Some references need to be added here.)