Bioethics
Bioethics examines the ethical and philosophical issues surrounding biological and medical research, technologies, and treatments. These issues include informed consent, patient safety, conflicts of interest, and the broader social and political consequences of biotechnologies. Some critics have suggested that bioethicists are too focused on doctor-patient and researcher-subject relationships to the exclusion of broader social concerns, or that they are too willing to provide justifications for questionable scientific work. Others have accused bioethicists of placing unnecessary obstacles in the way of scientific investigations.
Everyone knows, or thinks they know, that complex and fast-moving new biotechnologies inevitably outstrip legal regulation and ethical scrutiny. Surrogacy—the...