1st Edition

Everyday Bioethics Reflections on Bioethical Choices in Daily Life

By Giovanni Berlinguer Copyright 2003
    174 Pages
    by Routledge

    174 Pages
    by Routledge

    "Everyday Bioethics" suggests a new perspective on the relationships between science, ethics and society. It is based upon the distinction and integration of two fields: the frontier bioethics, which examines the new development of biomedicine; and the bioethics of everyday life, which concerns all people around the world. Indeed, moral reflection on birth, human bodies, jobs, the gender and class relations, diseases and the treatment of the sick, death, the interdependence of human beings and other living creatures, has a long history, as long as that of mankind itself. The ideas and values that daily permeate the minds and behaviors of all human beings in these fields deserve the greatest attention, and are increasingly influenced by the progress of science and technology.

    Chapter 1.  Procreation and Birth Procreation may become a free choice of individuals. Obstacles created by society and facilities provided by technologies are discusses, together with the status of embryos and of human cloning.

     Chapter 2.  Population, Ethics, and Equity The population policies cannot be defined on the basis of the interest of the state. Human rights, the value of pluralism and the search for equity are the principles of democracy in the demographic choices.

     Chapter 3.  Work and Health: Foundations and Ethical Conflicts The relationships between health and work lies at the interface between biology and ethics. The conflicting interests and values in this field are discussed in their historical development and perspectives. 

     Chapter 4.  The Human Body: From Slavery to the Biomarket Every part of the human body, from DNA to gametes to organs, is in danger to be transformed into a commodity. A comparison is presented between the arguments put forward in favour of slavery and of the biomarket. 

     Chapter 5. Global Health After 1492, when the "microbial unification of the world" begun, the interchange of diseases and health has become an international issue. The main contradiction is now between the growing possibilities of medicine and the deepening of inequities between and inside the countries.

     Afterword

     Index

    Biography

    Giovanni Berlinguer (Author)