Life Sciences or Death Sciences
Thematic : Rights and freedoms / Unclassified
Published on : 02/03/2006
Author / Source : Ronald M. Atlas and Margaret Somerville
Professor in the Faculty of Medicine
Founding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine,
Ethics and Law at McGill University
Tipping the Balance towards Life with Ethics, Codes, and Laws
The search for ethics to govern the life sciences and the threats to public health their misuse could entail, both nationally and internationally, is part of a complex ongoing process which is forcing us to confront diverse and sometimes strongly conflicting viewpoints.
To successfully reduce the threat of bioterrorism and biowarfare, and to protect public health, especially on a global level, we all will need to engage across boundaries that have separated us in the past. Only by doing so can we seek to ensure that the promise of our unparalleled discoveries of new knowledge in the life sciences is fulfilled and it's potential for unprecedented harm averted.
Certainly, no one measure will be sufficient to ensure that science is not misused, or public health put at risk, or people's rights not unjustifiably breached, but in conjunction with other measures, ethics and law properly used can contribute to the protection of people, the reduction of risks of serious harm, and the deterrence of bioterrorism and biowarfare.
Ronald Atlas and Margaret Somerville, “Life Sciences or Death Sciences: Tipping the Balance towards Life with Ethics, Codes and Laws”, in Brian Rappert & Caitríona McLeish (eds), A Web of Prevention, Earthscan; London- Sterling, VA, 2007, pp.15-33.
- ethics committee
- genetics
- Biosafety regulations
Similar articles
Biotechnology & the Human Spirit
- Assisted reproduction
Professor in the Faculty of MedicineFounding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine,
Ethics and Law at McGill University
Facing the unprecedented challenge of reprogenetics
WHAT HAS CHANGED IN HUMAN REPRODUCTION?
Let's have a look, first, at the characteristics of human reproduction around fifty years ago:
Whether and when a child was conceived was largely a matter of chance (one could eliminate chance, of course, by not engaging in sexual intercourse, or reduce it by much...
Birth, Death & Technoscience
- End of life
Professor in the Faculty of MedicineFounding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine,
Ethics and Law at McGill University
Searching for Values at the Margins of Life
The Changing Context of Birth and Death
We humans have always formed our most important values and sought meaning in life by weaving a metaphorical fabric around the two marker events of every human life, birth and death. Our perceptions of birth, and the values traditionally attached to it, are being c...