As technology and medicine have advanced, the field of biomedical ethics has come to the forefront with many controversial topics, such as the rationing of health services, euthanasia and the definition of death, and reproductive technology. The purpose of this section is just to bring to light some of the questions raised by these advances, not to suggest answers to these questions.

Rationing Health Services

 In terms of health and healthcare there are a great number of inequities. Some people are rarely ever sick, while others need constant care just to survive. With a limited number of doctors is it fair to allow a few patients to take so much of their time, even if they will never get better? Is it fair that people with more money and better insurance go to better hospitals and see better doctors? What about organs? Is it fair for a recovered alcoholic to get a new liver to replace the one they destroyed while a child dies for lack of one? These questions have no easy answers, which is one reason health care law is so difficult to write. However, these issues impact people and society as a whole on a daily basis, from the uninsured waiting hours to be seen in a hospital to patients dieing due to lack of availability of organs for transplant. 

Who Decides What is Death?

Another tough topic is death, and what is clinically dead. With today’s advanced medical technology, life can be sustained in a body long after brain activity has stopped. Does that person’s family have the right to sustain that life? Sometimes people return from comas long after their family has been told brain death has occurred. Does science have any right to say what defines death in a still living body?

Euthanasia (meaning “good death”) is on the other end of the spectrum. While many people support the right for a person to choose when to end their life, particularly when diagnosed with a terminal disease, this practice can lead to a slippery slope. If it is alright to assist the terminally ill with their deaths, what about the chronically ill, or the severely handicapped? There are people that believe that those not born “perfect” should not have been born at all. Some people believe that allowing euthanasia could cheapen the sanctity of life, and where does that leave society?

Reproduction

There is also the opposite problem–the argument over when life begins–brought about by the issue of abortion. A closely related issue is stem cell research. Stem cells have the possibility of curing so many diseases, but gathering stem cells currently requires the death of an embryo. Does the benefit outweigh the cost?

Click HERE for a video about the benefits and difficulties of stem cell research.

 

Another issue surrounding reproductive technology is genetic selection. It may soon be commonplace to be asked what gender you’d prefer for your child and what color hair you want them to have. However, genetic diseases could also be all but eradicated. Even now though, genetic screening brings up some issues. Who decides what disease are bad enough for a fetus to not get to be born?

Click HERE for an interactive with more information about genetic selection.

 

Cloning

In 1996 the cloning of Dolly the sheep sparked a wildfire of debate on the ethics of cloning. While cloning has been used for years in agriculture, the idea of cloning animals and maybe eventually people has many concerned. Cloning organs so that more are available for transplants would be a huge benefit, but losing the diversity of life by cloning whole organisms could cause evolutionary problems.