Report Of The President S Council On Bioethics

Contains a collection of essays exploring human dignity and bioethics, a concept crucial to today's discourse in law and ethics in general and in bioethics in particular.

March 2004. Purpose is to advise the President on bioethical issues related to advances in biomedical science and technology. Undertakes fundamental inquiry into the human and moral significance of developments in biomedical and behavioral science and technology. Explores specific ethical and policy questions related to these developments. Provides a forum for a national discussion of bioethical issues. Facilitates a greater understanding of bioethical issuesNOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRODUCT. Significantly reduced price. Overstock List Price. "

explores the profound ethical and social consequences of today's biotechnical revolution. Almost every week brings news of novel methods for screening genes and testing embryos, choosing the sex and modifying the behavior of children, enhancing athletic performance, slowing aging, blunting painful memories, brightening mood, and altering basic temperaments. But we must not neglect the fundamental question: Should we be turning to biotechnology to fulfill our deepest human desires? We want better children -- but not by turning procreation into manufacture or by altering their brains to gain them an edge over their peers. We want to perform better in the activities of life -- but not by becoming mere creatures of chemistry. We want longer lives -- but not at the cost of becoming so obsessed with our own longevity that we care little about future generations. We want to be happy --

The question of how—by what standard—an individual should be declared dead is once more a matter of controversy. With this report, the President's Council on Bioethics takes up this controversy and seeks to illuminate the issues at the center of the renewed debate about the inherently perplexing problems of determining human death in an age of life-sustaining technologies. In the following pages, the President's Council examines the main lines of criticism and defense of the neurological standard, and also explores the ethical concerns engendered by the use of the traditional cardiopulmonary standard in the organ procurement practice known as “controlled donation after cardiac death.” In so doing, the President's Council on Bioethics aims to apprise the American public of the contemporary state of the debate and to guide the public's reflections on matters that touch on some of society's deepest human questions.