Title,+Introduction,+Scope

TITLE: A Past, Present, and Future of Bioethics

INTRODUCTION: We turn on the news today and we hear 20 second glimpses into issues much broader than we can possibly imagine. We hear words like 'clones' or 'stem cell' and register them as something important, but without ascertaining the true power of these phrases. We accidentally eavesdrop on a conversation and heed things like 'euthanasia' or 'hospice', but without knowing what those things actually are. This is a tragedy of our generation. The arrogance of ignorance or the "I don't know and I don't car" attitude is a plague that needs to be stopped. Bioethics is an important factor of our existence and it should be expected that everyone has an opinion on the matter. But we don't and. hopefully, that can be changed. 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. End-of-life consultation provides a fascinating insight into the critical decisions of the human mind. This is not a recent addition to the headlines; bioethics has been a poignant topic for medical professionals from all countries for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The most intriguing section of bioethics is not the background or the court rulings, it is the scientists. Bioethics is a fascinating moral dilemma and we rarely hear from the scientific point of view in the matter.

SCOPE: While it would certainly be unreasonable to attempt to cover all of bioethics in one single paper, I hope to bring to readers a brief history of bioethics. I am focusing in on three subtopics; stem cell research, cloning, and euthanasia, with a major underlying theme being the decisions made by scientists and researchers whose passion is these topics. The audience that will be reading this paper will certainly not be an expert in this topic, so bowdlerizing some details may be necessary. Unfortunately, since I don't have a team of scientists and researchers to answer all my questions, I have chosen to poll the faculty about their beliefs and opinions regarding these three subtopics.