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The Danish Council of Ethics, Research in Human Gametes, Fertilised Ova, Embryos and Fetuses |
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The beginning of human life and the moral status of the embryo.
A Debate Outline.（參閱網址） |
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The Danish Council of Ethics, Euthanasia （安樂死） |
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Euthanasia
-- summary of a report for use in the public debate（參閱網址）
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Tomlinson, Tom. (美國密西根州立大學), Balancing Principles in Beauchamp and Childress |
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In the latest edition of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Tom Beauchamp and James Childress provide an expanded discussion of the ethical theory underlying their treatment of issues in medical ethics. Balancing judgements remain central to their method, as does the contention that such judgements are more than intuitive. This theory is developed precisely in response to the common skepticism directed at "principlism" in medical ethics. Such skepticism includes the claim that moral reasoning comes to a dead halt when confronted by competing conflicts between moral norms in a given pluralistic situation. In this paper, I use examples from the text to show that despite the authors’s arguments to the contrary, balancing judgements are the product of unreasoned intuitions. Given the necessity of some such judgements in any principle-based system, my argument highlights the degree to which principled ethical reasoning rests upon an arational core.（參閱網址） |
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The Danish Council of Ethics, Patenting Human Genes and Stem Cells |
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With this report the Council of Ethics wishes to contribute to the general discussion about the ethical defensibility of taking out patents on human genes and stem cells. At the same time the Council provides it's recommendations to the rules in force and to the current practice of granting human gene and stem cell patents with regard to how best to safeguard ethical considerations in the process.（參閱網址）
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The Danish Council of Ethics, Genetic investigation of Healthy Subjects - Report on Presymptomatic Gene Diagnosis |
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Presymptomatic genetic testing is an investigation of individuals at risk of genetically conditioned disease or predisposed to a disease, undertaken before that disease has presented symptoms. The scope of presymptomatic diagnosis is still limited and is confined almost exclusively to relatively rare disorders, for which reason only comparatively few people are confronted with the problems entailed by examinations of this kind. But there is reason to assume that the target group for presymptomatic genetic testing will be extended to include the entire population when the mapping of the human genome provides increased scope for studying popular diseases such as cancer, psychogenic diseases and cardiovascular disorders. The purpose of the report is to focus on the ethical issues linked with the use of presymptomatic genetic testing.（參閱網址）
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The Danish Council of Ethics, Cloning - Statement from the Danish Council of Ethics （複製--丹麥倫理委員會的聲明） |
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A unified Council of Ethics rejects human cloning ever being permissible for the purpose of creating a genetic copy of a human being. Although some of the Councils members acknowledge that the intuitive resistance to reproductive cloning cannot be substantiated in a single argument, the members nonetheless unanimously reject permitting reproductive human cloning on the basis of the comprehensive nature of several arguments,
- cloning will be a violation of human dignity,
- knowing that he or she has come into being as a clone will have adverse consequences for a person (right to an open future) and
- permitting research in view of reproductive cloning will reflect a disregard for the respect due to the moral status of embryos.
The members of the Danish Council of Ethics have different views on which sort of moral status the early embryo possesses. As a result, its members also have different views on the ethical defensibility of undertaking research into early embryos and, in the fullness of time perhaps, developing therapies for serious disorders, treatment of which is based on embryonic stem cells.
Five members consider the moral status of the human embryo such that embryonic stem cells must not be used; eleven members find that, in principle, embryonic stem cells can be used as long as substantial benefits are available for treating disease.
Nine of the members able to approve the use of embryonic stem cells in principle, however, find that there is no pressing need at the present to allow embryonic stem cells to be produced for research or possible treatment of disease, either by cloning or by the in vitro technique, as known from IVF therapy. This is because treating severe disease with stem cells is still only a theoretical possibility, and manufacturing embryos for any purpose other than having the embryo become a child may constitute a slide in values. Initially, therefore, these members recommend that research into embryonic stem cells be confined to embryos left over from IVF treatment.
Finally, two members feel that the use of therapeutic cloning with a view to research into the treatment of severe disorders is ethically acceptable, providing such research is carried out on very early embryos only, compare current legislation.（參閱網址）
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