Now in its third edition, Bioethics in Canada: A Philosophical Introduction offers a comprehensive overview of the philosophical, historical, and medical concepts shaping contemporary debates on biomedical issues. The text opens with an introduction to moral theory and bioethical principles, followed by application of these theories and principles to real world ethical conflicts involving abortion, distributive justice, genetics, reproductive technology, and other vital topics. A landmark case opens each chapter, illuminating the many issues involved in these debates, as well as the philosophical assumptions that shape them. Thoroughly updated to reflect recent political, medical, and cultural changes, this third edition features new sections on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), the moral philosophy of liberalism in bioethics, the Mad movement, CRISPR and gene editing, and expanded content on mental health, rural and remote communities, and codes of conduct and codes of ethics. Accessibly written with newly added case studies in the health care workplace, this text is an insightful resource for courses in the disciplines of philosophy, health studies, medicine, and nursing, providing a strong ethical foundation in an ever-changing field.

Offering a compendium of case studies in bioethics, Choosing Well demonstrates real ethical dilemmas that can occur in health care settings. Instructors can draw upon the scenarios in this concise and highly effective resource to encourage analysis, critique, discussion, and debate of hot-button ethical issues. The authors present a diverse selection of complex case studies in bioethics to stimulate in-depth analysis on topics ranging from distributive justice, research ethics, reproductive technologies, abortion, and death and dying, to the health care professional–patient relationship and ethics in the workplace. The text also features case studies that move through time to reflect real-life decision making and cases that present multiple perspectives to illustrate the challenges that can arise from disputes in health care settings. Utilizing the DECIDED strategy for analyzing case studies, instructors can guide students through the steps needed to work through a wide variety of ethical dilemmas and encourage reflection on their own ethical assumptions. Accessible, practical, and highly engaging, Choosing Well offers a helpful and interesting way to explore central issues in contemporary bioethics, making it an indispensable resource for instructors and students of bioethics, biomedical ethics, and health care ethics. FEATURES: - Includes a brief introduction to ethics, the role of case studies, and some of the most important bioethical principles, as well as a glossary of key terms - Features Canadian-focused content and themes reflecting the challenges of modern health care settings - Provides a framework for case study analysis, along with sample analyses of three full case studies using the DECIDED approach

Vaughn offers a hybrid of text, readings, and cases to fill a need left for a current, accessible introduction to the philosophical, medical, scientific, social, and legal aspects of key bioethics issues. It offers a balance between basic ethical theories and current controversies. Itscase-driven approach and a very robust set of pedagogical features introduce issues in a way that engages students in decision making. Hot topics include paternalism and patient autonomy, truth telling, informed consent, abortion, in vitro fertilization, cloning, impaired infants, embryonicstem-cell dilemmas, genetic engineering, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, human and animal research, inequities in access to medical treatment, HIV/AIDS in Africa, and health-care costs.

​The goal of this open access book is to develop an approach to clinical health care ethics that is more accessible to, and usable by, health professionals than the now-dominant approaches that focus, for example, on the application of ethical principles. The book elaborates the view that health professionals have the emotional and intellectual resources to discuss and address ethical issues in clinical health care without needing to rely on the expertise of bioethicists. The early chapters review the history of bioethics and explain how academics from outside health care came to dominate the field of health care ethics, both in professional schools and in clinical health care. The middle chapters elaborate a series of concepts, drawn from philosophy and the social sciences, that set the stage for developing a framework that builds upon the individual moral experience of health professionals, that explains the discontinuities between the demands of bioethics and the experience and perceptions of health professionals, and that enables the articulation of a full theory of clinical ethics with clinicians themselves as the foundation. Against that background, the first of three chapters on professional education presents a general framework for teaching clinical ethics; the second discusses how to integrate ethics into formal health care curricula; and the third addresses the opportunities for teaching available in clinical settings. The final chapter, "Empowering Clinicians", brings together the various dimensions of the argument and anticipates potential questions about the framework developed in earlier chapters.

The third edition of The Basics of Bioethics continues to provide a balanced and systematic ethical framework to help students analyze a wide range of controversial topics in medicine, and consider ethical systems from various religious and secular traditions. The Basics of Bioethics covers the “Principalist” approach and identifies principles that are believed to make behavior morally right or wrong. It showcases alternative ethical approaches to health care decision making by presenting Hippocratic ethics as only one among many alternative ethical approaches to health care decision-making. The Basics of Bioethics offers case studies, diagrams, and other learning aids for an accessible presentation. Plus, it contains an all-encompassing ethics chart that shows the major questions in ethics and all of the major answers to these questions.

Medicine and health care generate many bioethical problems and dilemmas that are of great academic, professional and public interest. This comprehensive resource is designed as a succinct yet authoritative text and reference for clinicians, bioethicists, and advanced students seeking a better understanding of ethics problems in the clinical setting. Each chapter illustrates an ethical problem that might be encountered in everyday practice; defines the concepts at issue; examines their implications from the perspectives of ethics, law and policy; and then provides a practical resolution. There are 10 key sections presenting the most vital topics and clinically relevant areas of modern bioethics. International, interdisciplinary authorship and cross-cultural orientation ensure suitability for a worldwide audience. This book will assist all clinicians in making well-reasoned and defensible decisions by developing their awareness of ethical considerations and teaching the analytical skills to deal with them effectively.

The advances in molecular biology and genetics, medicine and neurosciences, in ethology and environmental studies have put the concept of the person firmly on the philosophical agenda. Whereas earlier times seemed to have a clear understanding about the moral implications of personhood and its boundaries, today there is little consensus on such matters. Whether a patient in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease is still a person, or whether a human embryo is already a person are highly contentious issues. This book tackles the issue of personhood and its moral implications head-on. The thirteen essays are representative of the major strands in the current bioethical debate and offer new insights into humanity's moral standing, its foundations, and its implications for social interaction. While most of the essays approach the issue by drawing on the rich intellectual tradition of the West, others offer a cross-cultural perspective and make available for ethical consideration the philosophical resources and the wisdom of the East. The contributors to this book are highly recognized philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and professionals in health care and medicine from East Asia (China, Japan), Europe, and North America. The first part of the book probes the foundations of personhood. Examining critically the main theories on personhood in contemporary philosophy, the authors offer alternatives that better respond to contemporary challenges and their implications for bioethics. The focus of the second part is firmly on the Confucian relational concept of the person and on the social constitution of personhood in traditional Japanese culture. While the essays challenge the individualistic features of personhood in the Western tradition, they lay the foundations for a richer concept that holds great promise for the resolution of moral dilemmas in modern medicine and health care. The third part of the book enters into a dialogue with the Christian tradition and draws on its spiritual heritage in the search for answers to the contemporary challenges to human dignity and value. Its focus is on the Catholic social thought and Lutheran theology. The fourth part addresses the moral status of persons in view of specific issues such as the effects of brain injury, gene therapy, and human cloning on personhood. It extends the scope of research beyond human beings and inquires also into the moral status of animals.