Questions in Bioethics
Bioethics requires the asking of questions that go beyond current legal requirements. Are there ways to guarantee safe cosmetics and personal care products that do not involve the use of animals? If animal testing is the only sure way to guarantee product safety, are there ways to keep from harming animals in the process? One option gaining in popularity is to restrict animal testing to the most humane and painless tests possible. Restricting the use of animals to the final stages of testing is another way researchers are trying to balance human safety with animal comfort.
Another issue confronting bioethicists has to do with the removal of animals from the wild for research purposes. In particular, the use of wild chimpanzees and other primates is under scrutiny. The dilemma arises because the public does not appear to support continued harvesting of primates from wild habitats for research purposes, yet the chimpanzee, for example, is the animal most closely related to humans, and thus most desirable for testing potential medicines.
There is little disagreement that creative minds are needed to explore alternative methods of assessing the effects of chemicals on human beings. Increasing knowledge about the human genome, and the promise of genetic treatments for human disease, suggest that animals will continue to have a role in medical research. Those involved in the field of bioethics will constantly be challenged to assess how and when to use animals for this research.
The field of bioethics addresses more than just the question of how to manage conflicting priorities and approaches to animal testing. Now that geneticists have created clones of nonhuman species of vertebrates, there are increasing questions regarding the ethical use of human genetic material. Should researchers be allowed to try to clone human organs for life-saving transplants? Should human embryonic tissue be made available for stem-cell research? Should doctors be allowed to test gene therapy on human patients who have exhausted all other treatment options?
Scientists search for ways to apply a growing body of knowledge to the betterment of human life. Philosophers and others pose ethical questions concerning scientific advancement. Sellers of goods and services depend on the advancements of science to create and fill market needs. Bioethics is the field where life science, philosophy, and commerce meet, where practitioners negotiate boundaries, wrestle with guidelines, and seek balance within the natural world in the quest to improve the quality and quantity of human life. SEE ALSO Animal Rights; Animal Testing.
