Bioethics

• Good and Bad

• Individual Judgement
• supra-interdisciplinary
Origin of Bioethics
• Van Rensselaer Potter in 1970 who used the term ‘bioethics’ for
the first time
• for the protection of earth from the high pollution growth and
wastage of natural resources, thus defining global ethics as a
discipline representing a link between biology, ecology, medicine
and human values in order to ensure the survival of both human
beings and other animal species.
Biotechnology issues related to ethics include
❏ Cloning
❏ Stem cell research
❏ Drug trials
❏ Use of pharmaceuticals
❏ Xenotransplantation
❏ Safety of the nanoparticles
❏ Genomic studies
❏ Release of transgenic organisms
❏ New reproductive strategies.
 Branches or Theories of Bioethics
• normative (prescriptive ethics),
• non-normative (descriptive/metaethics)
• Interactive bioethics

• Normative action has been defined as a group-act that is intended to affect

public policy and conforms to the norms of the dominant social system,
which could include laws and regulations, whereas nonnormative action
violates these norms and rules and goes beyond the “acceptable” or “legal”
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO ETHICS
There are various approaches to ethics and these are the
following:
❏ The utility approach
❏ The rights approach
❏ The fairness and justice approach
❏ The common good approach
❏ The virtue approach
THE UTILITY APPROACH (More good to
more masses)
• In the utility approach, multiple courses of action are
identified and evaluated for effectiveness and the harms and
benefits that can be derived from these actions. It finally
narrows down to the action that will produce more benefit
and least harm.

• The principle of utility states that actions or behaviors are right in so

far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to
produce unhappiness or pain. Hence, utility is a teleological principle.
The rights approach
• The rights approach talks about the right of an individual to make a
choice. It focuses on different rights of a person, like the right to the
truth according to which one has a right to know about the things that
affects one by making some choice, the right to privacy as long as it does
not violate the rights of others, the right not to be punished until proven
guilty and the right to speak if there is a breach in an agreed contract.

• This approach stipulates that the best ethical action is that which
protects the ethical rights of those who are affected by the action. It
emphasizes the belief that all humans have a right to dignity.
The fairness and justice approach
In the fairness and justice approach, it is stated that everyone should
be treated equally. It deals with the fairness of action that should treat
everyone in a same way and should not show any kind of
discrimination.

Favoritism gives benefits to some people without a justifiable reason

for singling them out; discrimination imposes burdens on people who
are no different from those on whom burdens are not imposed. Both
favoritism and discrimination are unjust and wrong.
The common good approach
• The common good approach deals with the community as a whole
and not as individuals. It ensures that all social policies and systems
are designed in a manner so as to benefit all the people rather than a
select set of people.

• The common good approach refers to actions that are taken or

policies that are put into place in order to benefit not only a certain
group of individuals, but the society as a whole. The common good
approach includes policies and certain outlets that allow for improving
the quality of citizen's lives.
The virtue approach
• The virtue approach to ethics talks about virtues like honesty,
courage, compassion, generosity, integrity, fairness etc. while dealing
with ethical problems.

• Virtue ethics mainly deals with the honesty and morality of a

person. It states that practicing good habits such as honesty,
generosity makes a moral and virtuous person. It guides a person
without specific rules for resolving the ethical complexity.
 Bioethical Issues and Conflicts in the
Development of GMOs
❏ Interference with nature and effect of transgenic organisms on the
environment.
❏ Mixing of DNA to form chimeras that are not present in nature
❏ Risk of altering the ecosystem through gene fl ow
❏ Lack of consumer choice as most of the GMO products are sold without
labelling.
❏ Mass destruction of non-target insect population, loss of balance of nature and
adverse effect on individuals who consume crops that are genetically modified by
the use of bio-pesticides
❏ High cost of transgenic seeds, non-availability of seeds to farmers in case a
crop is raised from seeds using terminator gene technology
 Conti…
❏ Use of animals in GMO experiments
❏ Manipulation of genetic traits of the children to produce designer babies
❏ Unnatural, immoral acts of violation of God’s law by crossing species by creating
transgenic combinations from different sources and putting the entire species concept at
risk resulting in loss of biological, ecological and morphological diversity
❏ Mass production of pharmaceuticals using cloned genes in plants as bioreactors
imposing the risk of toxicity and allergenicity
❏ Premature death of most cloned animals due to illness and other complications
arising out of cloning
❏ Possibility of introduction of new diseases in humans by xenotransplantation Long-
term adverse effects on the environment when transgenics are released in the fi eld
❏ Risk of creating new diseases/disease agents for which there is no medical treatment
through DNA combinations used in transgenic research.