Prominent bioethicists whose work is rooted in philosophy, religion, medicine, nursing, literature, history, and policy analysis join together to discuss their methods and professional insights, as well as to better define the field and its future development. Writing from the perspective of their own specialties, the authors: review just how their personal disciplines have contributed to bioethics, debate the current and future bioethical issues they face, and identify the most significant strengths and weaknesses in the current practice of bioethics. Seeking a sound foundation for the discipline, they also consider what basic knowledge and skills are necessary to be competent in bioethics, what methods and theoretical approaches are most promising for its future development, and what issues or perspectives have been neglected.

"Drawing on his previous work, Brody argues that most of the issues concerned involve power disparities. Bioethics' response ought to combine new concepts that take power relationships seriously, with new practical activities that give those now lacking power a greater voice. A chapter on community dialogue outlines a role for the general public in bioethics deliberations. Lessons about power initially learned from feminist bioethics need to be expanded into new areas - cross cultural, racial and ethnic, and global and environmental issues, as well as the concerns of persons with disabilities. Bioethics has neglected important ethical controversies that are most often discussed in primary care, such as patient-centered care, evidence-based medicine, and pay-for-performance.".

The sequencing of the entire human genome has opened up unprecedented possibilities for healthcare, but also ethical and social dilemmas about how these can be achieved, particularly in developing countries. UNESCO’s Bioethics Programme was established to address such issues in 1993. Since then, it has adopted three declarations on human genetics and bioethics (1997, 2003 and 2005), set up numerous training programmes around the world and debated the need for an international convention on human reproductive cloning. Negotiating Bioethics presents Langlois' research on the negotiation and implementation of the three declarations and the human cloning debate, based on fieldwork carried out in Kenya, South Africa, France and the UK, among policy-makers, geneticists, ethicists, civil society representatives and industry professionals. The book examines whether the UNESCO Bioethics Programme is an effective forum for (a) decision-making on bioethics issues and (b) ensuring ethical practice. Considering two different aspects of the UNESCO Bioethics Programme – deliberation and implementation – at international and national levels, Langlois explores: how relations between developed and developing countries can be made more equal who should be involved in global level decision-making and how this should proceed how overlap between initiatives can be avoided what can be done to improve the implementation of international norms by sovereign states how far universal norms can be contextualized what impact the efficacy of national level governance has at international level Drawing on extensive empirical research, Negotiating Bioethics presents a truly global perspective on bioethics. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, politics, science and technology studies, bioethics, anthropology, international relations, and public health. A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.tandfebooks.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.

Human embryo research touches upon strongly felt moral convictions, and it raises such deep questions about the promise and perils of scientific progress that debate over its development has become a moral and political imperative. From in vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and gene editing, Americans have repeatedly struggled with how to define the moral status of the human embryo, whether to limit its experimental uses, and how to contend with sharply divided public moral perspectives on governing science. Experiments in Democracy presents a history of American debates over human embryo research from the late 1960s to the present, exploring their crucial role in shaping norms, practices, and institutions of deliberation governing the ethical challenges of modern bioscience. J. Benjamin Hurlbut details how scientists, bioethicists, policymakers, and other public figures have attempted to answer a question of great consequence: how should the public reason about aspects of science and technology that effect fundamental dimensions of human life? Through a study of one of the most significant science policy controversies in the history of the United States, Experiments in Democracy paints a portrait of the complex relationship between science and democracy, and of U.S. society's evolving approaches to evaluating and governing science's most challenging breakthroughs.

This work presents the first comprehensive and systematic treatment of all relevant issues and topics in contemporary global bioethics. Now that bioethics has entered into a novel global phase, a wider set of issues, problems and principles is emerging against the backdrop of globalization and in the context of global relations. This new stage in bioethics is furthermore promoted through the ethical framework presented in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights adopted in 2005. This Declaration is the first political statement in the field of bioethics that has been adopted unanimously by all Member States of UNESCO. In contrast to other international documents, it formulates a commitment of governments and is part of international law (though not binding as a Convention). It presents a universal framework of ethical principles for the further development of bioethics at a global level. The Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics caters to the need for a comprehensive overview and systematic treatment of all pertinent new topics and issues in the emerging global bioethics debate. It provides descriptions and analysis of a vast range of important new issues from a truly global perspective and with a cross-cultural approach. New issues covered by the Encyclopedia and neglected in more traditional works on bioethics include, but are not limited to, sponsorship of research and education, scientific misconduct and research integrity, exploitation of research participants in resource-poor settings, brain drain and migration of healthcare workers, organ trafficking and transplant tourism, indigenous medicine, biodiversity, commodification of human tissue, benefit sharing, bio industry and food, malnutrition and hunger, human rights and climate change.

Much recent thought on the ethics of new biomedical technologies, and work in ethics and political philosophy more generally, is committed to hidden and contestable views about the nature of biological reality. This selection of essays by Tim Lewens, a leading expert in the field, teases out these biological foundations of bioethical writing and subjects them to scrutiny. The topics covered include human enhancement, the risks of technical progress, the alleged moral threat of synthetic biology, the reality of human nature, the relevance of evolutionary psychology to social policy, the nature of the distinction between health and disease, and justice in healthcare decision-making.