Initial+Proposal

Every day, scientists are redefining not only their professions, but their own moral values. All over the news, we see the consequences of their decisions; stem cell research, cloning, and other so-called 'unethical' experiments are now hugely controversial topics and most people find themselves having a very strong opinion on them. I chose to do a project discussing the personal choices made in regards to bioethics simply because of an interest in the topic at hand. Bioethics is a fascinating moral dilemma and we rarely hear from the scientific point of view in the matter. The best way to go about researching and compiling information on bioethics would be a short time line in each field of research, along with the moral decisions made by the scientists involved in important breakthroughs. These fields of study are still very broad at the moment, but will almost certainly have something to do with cloning, stem cell research, and a scientific approach to death dilemmas, such as living wills, euthanasia, and end-of-life requests. From here, consulting an expert regarding this topic will be paramount to get a professional opinion. From this, the paper and project should progress naturally. Currently, I have ten sources that all either give a background in the topic, or offer more in-depth analysis. The paper will likely be an overview of each topic in question, a hisory of bioethics, and my own opinions as to the thesis. The project portion, however, is still very vague. Conducting experiments or activities dealing with bioethics would be difficult, to say the least. I might conduct a poll of the student body or try to contact some of these scientists personally to ask for their opinion. Irregardless, both my topic expert and my mentor will be invaluable in this process. Herein lies part of the problem with this topic of study; there, #1, are not that many topic experts in the field of bioethics, and, #2, not many students care about the subject of bioethics, just the individual issues. Only time will tell, I suppose, if this project is deemed doable.