Bioethics Is Becoming Just Another Social-Justice Political Movement
The field of bioethics was established to work through the proper parameters of medical ethics and to grapple with the vexing public health policy questions that arose in an increasingly technological age. The field’s primary (but not only) contribution to the public good (in my opinion) came early, through the work of the late theologian Paul Ramsey. In his seminal work, The Patient as a Person, Ramsey argued that forcing patients to be hooked up to “machines” against their will treated them as less than equals. The resulting bioethical discourse resulted in the legal right we all have to informed consent and to refuse unwanted medical treatment, even if that could lead to our deaths. Alas, in the decades since Ramsey’s heyday, Read More ›