BIOETHICS, Allwin Mathew T.

It is the study of the moral and social implications of developments in the biological sciences and the related technology. In its broadest sense it is the study of the moral, social and political problems that arise out of biology and the life sciences generally. This involves either directly or indirectly human wellbeing. While bioethics, a part of applied ethics, it is usually identified with medical ethics. But it is the controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine.

 It is a subject that grew enormously in the late twentieth century. The term Bioethics was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in an article about the "bioethical imperative", regarding the scientific use of animals and plants. The issues of bioethics have been debated since ancient times, the public attention briefly focused on the role of human subjects in biomedical experiments. The modern field of bioethics is emerged as an academic discipline in Anglophone societies in the 1960 and by the 1970 academic bioethics programs had emerged.

The fundamental principles that should underlie the conduct in bioethics, was announced in the Belmont Report namely autonomy, beneficence and justice. This was influenced the thinking of bioethicists across a wide range of issues. Bioethicists come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have training in diverse array of disciplines like philosophy, medicine, lawyers, etc. Thus it discusses the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law and philosophy.

 Bioethics includes environmental and animal ethics. Thus it has a broader concern apart from medical or biomedical ethics or the study of the moral problems that arise out of new developments in medical technology. This branch of ethics gives us vision about the relationship between human and nature. Are human beings morally entitled to use other living things, plants or animals in a way that they choose? Is there a special 'sacredness' or 'dignity' attached to human life? If so, does the stage of development that a human life has reached nevertheless make a difference to the mortality of destroying it? Such questions as these are the major concern of bioethics. So the critical, systematic and creative study of bioethics provides a better environment to the world.