K. Danner Clouser is one of the most important figures in establishing and shaping the fields of medical ethics, bioethics, and the philosophy of education in the second half of the twentieth century. Clouser challenged many established approaches to moral theory and offered innovative strategies for integrating the humanities into professional education, especially that of physicians and nurses. The contributions published in Building Bioethics: Conversations with Clouser and Friends on Medical Ethics are unique both in their devotion to a critical review of his contributions, and in bringing together internationally known figures in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy of medicine to comment upon Clouser's work. These leaders of the field include Tom Beauchamp, Daniel Callahan, James Childress, Nancy Dubler, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Al Jonsen, Loretta Kopelman, Larry McCullough, John Moskop, and Robert Veatch. This book merits special attention from those interested in bioethics, philosophy of medicine, medical ethics, philosophy, medical education, religious studies, and nursing education.

Contemporary bioethics, now roughly 40 years old as a discipline, originated in the United States with a primarily Anglo-American cultural ethos. It continues to be professionalized and institutionalized as a maturing discipline at the intersections of philosophy, medicine, law, social sciences, and humanities. Increasingly bioethics - along with its foundational values, concepts and principals - has been exported to other countries, not only in the developed West, but also in developing and/or Eastern countries. Bioethics thus continues to undergo intriguing transformations as it is globalized and adapted to local cultures. These processes have occurred rapidly in the last two decades, with relatively little reflection and examination.This volume brings together contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to take a critical, empirical look at bioethics around the globe, examining how it is being transformed - at both local and global levels - in this process of cross-cultural exporting and importing. One concern is to identify sociocultural forces and consequences which may positively or negatively affect ethics and social justice goals. This book thereby offers the first comparative anthropology and sociology of globalizing bioethics in the field, exploring the global dissemination, local adaptations, cultural meanings and social functions of bioethics theories, practices and institutions and comparing developed and developing countries.The volume considers a full range of countries on every inhabited continent, including: Africa, Asia, Australia, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Topics include government agendas such as nationalism and nation building; agendas of powerful, associated professions (e.g., medicine, law); theological and political agendas such as 'culture wars'; agendas of entrepreneurial economies of profit; and other cultural and ideological agendas consciously or unconsciously advanced or contested by bioethics work in particular countries based on their unique history, politics and culture. This cross-cultural exploration of globalizing bioethics will be of great interest to a field that is increasingly introspective about its underlying sociocultural assumptions and biases."At last-an unabashedly sociological and anthropological look at the globalization of bioethics, a really fresh approach to a maturing discipline. The chapters speak from the perspective of sophisticated Western-developed exporters of the bioethical paradigm [and equally sophisticated] Eastern-developing and third-world and interdisciplinary critics suspicious of the canonical view. Trained in the dominant school of American, mainstream philosophy, Myser draws on her long-standing commitment to a social and cultural approach to bioethics to take a fresh look at bioethics globally. She grasps the globalization of bioethics and the skepticism about analytical philosophy's Americanized consensus. The book sets the stage for a new era in bioethics theory and practice {debating] whether a universal common morality underlies the rich variation in national and cultural bioethics traditions."- Robert Veatch, Georgetown University"This path-breaking volume is the first to explore the global export of Western bioethics to a variety of non-Western settings. Explicitly critical, the book also points to the liberating potential of bioethics to achieve social justice and improve the lives of patients around the world. The book is a must-read for all medical anthropologists interested in bioethics." - Marcia Inhorn, Yale University"Bioethics Around the Globe should change the way bioethics is conceived and practiced in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its rich and wide-ranging comparative examination opens new possibilities for bioethical reflection. I enthusiastically recommend this wonderful book." - James F. Childress, University of Virginia"The past 40 years have seen a remarkable spread of bioethics to every part of the world. Dr. Myser's collection is a wonderful and rich exploration of its international impact, revealing important similarities and differences from country to country. It will have an important impact." - Daniel Callahan, The Hastings Center

Van Rensselaer Potter (1911-2001), the biochemist-oncologist of University of Wisconsin-Madison, was long been related to the invention of the term "bioethics". Even today, knowing that the German theologian Fritz Jahr (1895-1953) is to be credited for this invention, Potter's ideas do not lose on their importance, primarily for his opposition to a bioethics narrowed down onto biomedical issues. The book represents the first monograph on Potter's life and work worldwide, telling a fascinating story about a concerned top scientist and humanist.

In only four decades, bioethics has transformed from a fledgling field into a complex, rapidly expanding, multidisciplinary field of inquiry and practice. Its influence can be found not only in our intellectual and biomedical institutions, but also in almost every facet of our social, cultural, and political life. This volume maps the remarkable development of bioethics in American culture, uncovering the important historical factors that brought it into existence, analyzing its cultural, philosophical, and professional dimensions, and surveying its potential future trajectories. Bringing together a collection of original essays by seminal figures in the fields of medical ethics and bioethics, it addresses such questions as the following: - Are there precise moments, events, socio-political conditions, legal cases, and/or works of scholarship to which we can trace the emergence of bioethics as a field of inquiry in the United States? - What is the relationship between the historico-causal factors that gave birth to bioethics and the factors that sustain and encourage its continued development today? - Is it possible and/or useful to view the history of bioethics in discrete periods with well-defined boundaries? - If so, are there discernible forces that reveal why transitions occurred when they did? What are the key concepts that ultimately frame the field and how have they evolved and developed over time? - Is the field of bioethics in a period of transformation into biopolitics? Contributors include George Annas, Howard Brody, Eric J. Cassell, H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., Edmund L. Erde, John Collins Harvey, Albert R. Jonsen, Loretta M. Kopelman, Laurence B. McCullough, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Warren T. Reich, Carson Strong, Robert M. Veatch, and Richard M. Zaner.

Globalizing Feminist Bioethics is a collection of new essays on the topic of international bioethics that developed out of the Third World Congress of the International Association of Bioethics in 1996. Rosemarie Tong is the primary editor of this collection, in which she, Gwen Anderson, and Aida Santos look at such international issues as female genital cutting, fatal daughter syndrome, use of reproductive technologies, male responsibility, pediatrics, breast cancer, pregnancy, and drug testing.

Klugman and Dalinis initiate a much-needed conversation about the ethical and policy concerns facing health care providers in the rural United States. 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 is the first volume on bioethics all contributors of which are exclusively non-western scholars. The book unfolds a rich and colorful picture and addresses thorny bioethical issues from comprehensive Asian perspectives and different from the western paradigm of bioethics. It is of interest to senior undergraduate and graduate students, philosophers, physicians, scholars of Asian and culture studies, geneticists, sinologists, medical anthropologists, health administrators, and health officials.

This volume explores the plurality of moral perspectives shaping bioethics. It is inspired by Kazumasa Hoshino's critical reflections on the differences in moral perspectives separating Japanese and American bioethics. It offers a rich perspective of the range of approaches to bioethics and brings into question whether there is unambiguously one ethics for bioethics to apply.

Any list of the most influential figures of the second half of the twentieth century would arguably have to begin with the name of Pope John Paul II. From 1978, when he was inaugurated, to the present, over a quarter of a century later, the Pope has been a dominant force in the world, both within the Catholic and Christian Church, and in the larger international community. Among the areas in which the Pope has been of signal importance to contemporary discussion, argument, and policy has been the field of bioethics. This collection brings together for the first time in an accessible and readable form a summary and assessment of John Paul II's contribution to bioethical issues and theories. It includes discussion of the Pope's views on the dignity of the person and the sanctity of human life, and the application of these views to various difficulties in medical ethics such as abortion and embryo research, the right to health care and the problem of suffering. Throughout, attention is paid to the way in which the Pope stands as a recognizably authentic voice for the Catholic faith in the medical arena.

Unlike any other volume focusing on women’s health issues, this collection brings together a wealth of cross-disciplinary perspectives to bear on the intersection of breasts and medicine. Among other works on similar subject matters, the academic versatility of this volume is unparalleled. This collection can serve as a textbook in a wide range of courses including those in philosophy, women’s studies, biology, psychology, literature, history, and medicine.