PDF-(READ)-The Care of Life: Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Bioethics and Biopolitics

This interdisciplinary collection of essays demonstrates how the ethical and political problems we are confronted with today have come to focus largely on life The contributors to this volume define and assess the specific meaning of life itself It is only by doing so that we can understand why life has become an allencompassing problem why all questions especially ethical and political have become vital questions We have reached a moment in history where every distinction and opposition is no longer in relation to life but within it and where life is at once a theoretical and practical problem This book throws light on this nexus of problems at the heart of contemporary debates in bioethics and biopolitics It helps us understand why and how life is understood valued cared for and framed today Taking a genuinely transdisciplinary approach these essays demonstrate how life is a multifaceted problem and how diverse the origins foundations and also consequences of bioethics and biopolitics therefore are. Sue L. T. McGregor PhD Professor. Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax NS Canada. http://. www.consultmcgregor.com. Paper presented at the 2012 Partnership for Education and Research for Responsible Living (PERL) conference, Berlin, Germany. Buddhism. Always remember the . aspects of religion. , and the . adherents. !. What is the . ultimate purpose. ? Religions seek to connect adherents to the transcendent (i.e. God, enlightenment, . etc. This volume initiates a much-needed conversation about the ethical and policy concerns facing health care providers in the rural United States. Although 21 percent of the population lives in rural areas, only 11 percent of physicians practice there. What challenges do health care workers face in remote locations? What are the differences between rural and urban health care practices? What particular ethical issues arise in treating residents of small communities? Craig M. Klugman and Pamela M. Dalinis gather philosophers, lawyers, physicians, nurses, and researchers to discuss these and other questions, offering a multidisciplinary overview of rural health care in the United States.Rural practitioners often practice within small, tight-knit communities, socializing with their patients outside the examination room. The residents are more likely to have limited finances and to lack health insurance. Physicians may have insufficient resources to treat their patients, who often have to travel great distances to see a doctor.The first part of the book analyzes the differences between rural and urban cultures and discusses the difficulties in treating patients in rural settings. The second part features the personal narratives of rural health care providers, who share their experiences and insights. The last part introduces unique ethical challenges facing rural health care providers and proposes innovative solutions to those problems.This volume is a useful resource for bioethicists, members of rural bioethics committees and networks, policy makers, teachers of health care providers, and rural practitioners themselves. This collection features comprehensive overviews of the various ethical challenges in organ transplantation. International readings well-grounded in the latest developments in the life sciences are organized into systematic sections and engage with one another, offering complementary views. All core issues in the global ethical debate are covered: donating and procuring organs, allocating and receiving organs, as well as considering alternatives. Due to its systematic structure, the volume provides an excellent orientation for researchers, students, and practitioners alike to enable a deeper understanding of some of the most controversial issues in modern medicine. Dr. Farhat Moazam has written a wonderful book, based on her extraordinary first-hand study.... [S]he is an exceptionally gifted and evocative writer. Her book not only has the attributes of a superb piece of intellectual work, but it has literary artistic merit. --Renee C. Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at the University of PennsylvaniaThis is an ethnographic study of live, related kidney donation in Pakistan, based on Farhat Moazam\'s participant-observer research conducted at a public hospital. Her narrative is both a thick description of renal transplant cases and the cultural, ethical, and family conflicts that accompany them, and an object lesson in comparative bioethics. Tod Chambers suggests that literary theory is a crucial component in the complete understanding of bioethics. The Fiction of Bioethics explores the medical case study and distills the idea that bioethicists study real-life cases, while philosophers contemplate fictional accounts. Written for a lay audience, this volume contains essays on general bioethics, reproductive technologies, rape protocols, vaccines, organ transplantation, stem cells, genetic counseling, genetic engineering, and critical end-of-life issues. The authors are leading Catholic bioethicists Erica Laethem, John Haas, Edward Furton, Marilyn Coors, and Archbishop José Gomez. Suitable for classroom use. Includes an easy-reference glossary.   Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics. The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research. In Stewards of Life, Sondra Ely Wheeler presents a compact, basic introduction to the language and principles of contemporary bioethics. Perhaps more importantly, by providing a theological explanation and critique of the language and principles of bioethics as applied in medical contexts, she positions bioethical issues firmly within the context of the biblical narrative that forms the church and shapes Christian understanding of human life. Wheeler uses sample cases to illustrate the ways in which bioethical principles, appropriately understood, inform Christian moral reflection. She further gives specific attention to pastors\' and chaplains\' roles in helping patients and their families confront medical crises as members of the community of faith. This collection features comprehensive overviews of the various ethical challenges in organ transplantation. International readings well-grounded in the latest developments in the life sciences are organized into systematic sections and engage with one another, offering complementary views. All core issues in the global ethical debate are covered: donating and procuring organs, allocating and receiving organs, as well as considering alternatives. Due to its systematic structure, the volume provides an excellent orientation for researchers, students, and practitioners alike to enable a deeper understanding of some of the most controversial issues in modern medicine. Health care is ubiquitous in the industrialized world. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impacts the environment. Green bioethics synthesizes environmental ethics and biomedical ethics, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable health care. Notably, green bioethics addresses not the structure of environmental sustainability in health-care institutions but the sustainability of individual health-care offerings. It parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance: distributive justice, resource conservation, simplicity, and ethical economics. Through these four principles, green bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources in all areas of life. The principles of green bioethics, outlined in this book, will advance sustainability in health care. Islamic Perspectives on the Principles of Biomedical Ethics presents results from a pioneering seminar in 2013 between Muslim religious scholars, biomedical scientists, and Western bioethicists at the research Center for Islamic Legislation & Ethics, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies. By examining principle-based bioethics, the contributors to this volume addressed a number of key issues related to the future of the field. Discussion is based around the role of religion in bioethical reasoning, specifically from an Islamic perspective. Also considered is a presentation of the concept of universal principles for bioethics, with a response looking at the possibility (or not) of involving religion. Finally, there is in-depth analysis of how far specific disciplines within the Islamic tradition — such as the higher objectives of Sharia (maq??id al-Shar?\'ah) and legal maxims (qaw?\'id fiqh?yah) — can enrich principle-based bioethics. In Stewards of Life, Sondra Ely Wheeler presents a compact, basic introduction to the language and principles of contemporary bioethics. Perhaps more importantly, by providing a theological explanation and critique of the language and principles of bioethics as applied in medical contexts, she positions bioethical issues firmly within the context of the biblical narrative that forms the church and shapes Christian understanding of human life. Wheeler uses sample cases to illustrate the ways in which bioethical principles, appropriately understood, inform Christian moral reflection. She further gives specific attention to pastors\' and chaplains\' roles in helping patients and their families confront medical crises as members of the community of faith. In recent years, bioethicists have worked on government commissions, on ethics committees in hospitals and nursing homes, and as bedside consultants. Because ethical knowledge is based on experience within the field rather than on universal theoretical propositions, it is open to criticism for its lack of theoretical foundation. Once in the clinic, however, ethicists noted the extent to which medical practice itself combined the certitudes of science with craft forms of knowledge. In an effort to forge a middle path between pure science and applied medical and ethical knowledge, bioethicists turned to the work of classical philosophy, especially the theme of a practical wisdom that entails a variable knowledge of particulars. In this book contemporary bioethicists and scholars of ancient philosophy explore the import of classical ethics on such pressing bioethical concerns as managed care, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion. Although the contributors write within the limits of their own disciplines, through cross references and counterarguments they engage in fruitful dialogue.