Bioethics

Bioethics examines the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding biological and medical research, technologies, and treatments. These issues include informed consent, patient safety, conflicts of interest, and the broader social and political consequences of biotechnologies. Some critics have suggested that bioethicists are too focused on doctor-patient and researcher-subject relationships to the exclusion of broader social concerns, or that they are too willing to provide justifications for questionable scientific work. Others have accused bioethicists of placing unnecessary obstacles in the way of scientific investigations.

COVID-19 and Intimations of Eugenics under the Guise of Bioethics

By Gina Maranto, Guest Contributor | 06.29.2020

Biopolitical Times

Oxford University panjandrum and philosopher Julian Savulescu has spent most of his career advancing positions that push the envelope of acceptable medical practice. He has told us, for instance, that we are morally obligated to genetically engineer our babies under a principle he terms “procreative beneficence.” His efforts often strike one as having the seeming intent of giving the IVF and biotechnology industries cover under a supposedly ethical flag. No surprise, then, to find him advocating for us...

Bioethics

A Growing Chorus of Objections to Loosened Rules for Embryo and Germline Research

By Pete Shanks | 06.24.2021

Biopolitical Times

On May 26, the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), a non-governmental organization of scientists, released newly revised guidelines for research scientists. As in past iterations, they cover much more than stem cells, including heritable genome editing, artificial gametes, and growing human embryos in the lab. These guidelines are the work of a large committee of notable scientists and bioethicists, and have been translated into Chinese, Turkish, Korean, German, and Japanese; they have, or at least seek...

Genomics

Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics

Internal Content

Beyond Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics brings together the work of several dozen cutting-edge scholars and advocates, all of them...

Surrogacy: New Challenges to Law and Ethics

By Donna Dickenson | 12.08.2020

Biopolitical Times

Everyone knows, or thinks they know, that complex and fast-moving new biotechnologies inevitably outstrip legal regulation and ethical scrutiny. Surrogacy—the...

Policies

Troy Duster (UC Berkeley) offers opening remarks about the film Gattaca, followed by a panel discussion between Duster, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Emory), Osagie Obasogie (UC Berkeley, CGS), and moderator Karen Nakamura (UC Berkeley).

The event, co-sponsored by CGS and the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, took place at the David Brower Center in Berkeley on March 6, 2018.

Human Cloning