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When the “God squad” formed in Seattle in the
late 1960s—a group of medical professionals, clergy, and community
representatives who were charged with deciding which patients were
“worthy” of receiving limited dialysis resources—bioethics originally
focused on individual clinical decisions. Topics such as resource
allocation, truth-telling to patients and families, and the protection
of human subjects involved in medical research were the field’s primary
concern. The nature of today’s biotechnology forces us to look beyond
simply making clinical decisions.
A number of academic bioethics centers exist today, including the Hastings Center (www.thehastingscenter.org), the Penn Center for Bioethics (www.bioethics.upenn.edu), the Center for Practical Bioethics (www.practicalbioethics.org), the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (www.georgetown.edu/research/kie),
and numerous other university-affiliated organizations. Because no
defined academic discipline or credentialing system exists for
bioethics, each center is somewhat idiosyncratic in its makeup,
emphasis, and philosophy. However, the academic centers are alike in
attempting to present a balanced range of opinion and providing a forum
for scholars from many different academic disciplines.
In parallel with advances in biotechnology and medicine, bioethics
issues have become increasingly politicized. Many ideologically driven
policy think tanks—especially those with conservative political
goals—are beginning to include bioethical issues among the areas they
study. Leon R. Kass, the immediate past-chairman of the President’s
Council on Bioethics, also serves as the Hertog Fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org).
AEI takes a strong conservative position on a range of issues including
cloning, reproductive technologies, abortion, assisted suicide, and
stem-cell research. The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org)
likewise provides research and analysis to support right-wing policies
on marriage, abortion, sex education, and health care finance. The
Ethics and Public Policy Center (www.eppc.org)
sponsors the Biotechnology & American Democracy program, which has
put a conservative spin on questions such as embryo research, abortion,
and transhumanism.
In
addition to groups like these, conservative organizations have been
established that focus exclusively on bioethics issues. These include
the Center for Bioethics and Culture (www.thecbc.org), the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (www.cbhd.org), and the National Catholic Bioethics Center (www.ncbcenter.org).
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