The Journal of medicine and philosophy
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This essay examines the arguments for and against working towards the objective of human germ line engineering for medical purposes. Germ line changes which result as a secondary consequence of other well designed and ethically acceptable manipulations of somatic cells to cure an otherwise fatal disease can be seen as acceptable. ⋯ It is also morally unacceptable to use the promise of future benefit to experiment on fetuses or embryos when other more effective technologies exist to help parents have healthy children. Using new genetic technologies to select desirable genotypes among gametes is less problematic and affords a promising new technique for avoiding intergenerational harms.
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In this paper I examine the epistemology and ethics of consensus, focusing on the ways in which decision makers use/misuse ethical expertise. The major questions I raise and tentative answers I give are the following: First, are the 'experts' really experts? My tentative answer is that they are bona fide experts who often represent specific interest groups. ⋯ Persons who are ethics 'experts' must be particularly careful to practice an ethics of persuasion rather than an ethics of compulsion. Their role is not to force their group consensus upon decision makers' individual moral perceptions and deliberations; rather it is to help decision makers come to their own conclusions about what they ought to do.
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Biography Historical Article
Establishing the moral basis of medicine: Edmund D. Pellegrino's philosophy of medicine.
Edmund D. Pellegrino's philosophy of medicine is explored in categories such as the motivation in constructing a philosophy of medicine, the method, the starting point of the doctor-patient relationship, negotiation about values in this relationship, the goal of the relationship, the moral basis of medicine, and additional concerns in the relationship (concerns such as gatekeeping, philosophical anthropology, axiology, philosophy of the body, and the general disjunction between science and morals). ⋯ Finally, some suggestions for the future revitalization of philosophy of medicine are made based on Pellegrino's ideas. The focus throughout is on the moral basis and moral consequences of the philosophy of medicine, and not on other important themes.
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Donum Vitae argues that, by failing to respect the connection between the conjugal act and procreation, in vitro fertilization-even in the homologous or "simple case", where both gametes come from a married couple and the resulting embryo is transferred to the wife-shows itself to be morally unacceptable. On the other hand, the document refers approvingly to other technological interventions which "facilitate" or "assist" the conjugal act in achieving its objective. Although none of the latter interventions are mentioned by name, the recently developed gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT) and certain associated techniques have found favor with many orthodox Roman Catholic thinkers, as well with some church authorities. The present article explores this situation in the Catholic moral tradition, and offers reasons for believing that, given relevantly similar conditions, if GIFT is morally acceptable so also is homologous IVF-ET.
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The Chinese public medical care system was established after the 1949 revolution. However, there is no necessary connection between Marxism and the public medical care system; and although the current system may be reasonable from an historical point of view, it can no longer be justified ethically as an all-embracing medical system, since it does not provide equitable health care for the people.