Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Morality, Religion, And Public Bioethics: Shifting The Paradigm For The Public Discussion Of Embryo Research And Human Cloning, Brian Stiltner

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

Public ethics bodies play a major role in the development of public policies that govern scientific research and health care.' Their tasks include weighing the ethical ramifications of forms of research, educating the public about the research and its likely benefits, and recommending directions for institutional practices and legal policies. Much debate about public ethics bodies has concerned the mode and level of their ethical reasoning. Should public ethics bodies develop substantive moral arguments on issues that are subject to widely divergent moral and religious interpretations, such as the status of the human embryo? To develop such arguments would, of …