IN003-812 - Bioethics

  • 2,976 Standard Tuition Fee
  • 12
    Credit Points
  • 0.125 EFT 
  • 8
    AQF level
  • Category advanced unit
    C
  • integrative studiesUnit Discipline

Prerequisites

24cps TH/PE

Exclusions

Prior to 2020, this unit content was delivered under the unit code IN753-4.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will

A. Know and understand

1. Demonstrate Advanced knowledge and understanding of, and the research underlying, philosophical, theological and practical perspectives on contemporary issues in medical and bio- ethics

B. Be able to

1. Examine recent scholarship in its bearing on philosophical, theological and practical perspectives on contemporary issues in medical and bio-ethics
2. Demonstrate skill in utilising diverse scholarship in investigating philosophical, theological and practical perspectives on contemporary issues in medical and bio-ethics
3. Present Research-Aware evidence-based philosophical, theological and practical perspectives on contemporary issues in medical and bio-ethics
 

C. Be in a position to

1. Applying Advanced perspectives and skills from ‘Bioethics’ to ministry practice and Christian living as a reflective practitioner

Content

1. The nature and development of bioethics as a discipline, including its religious roots and secular manifestations.

2. Philosophical and scientific issues that pertain to bioethical issues, for example: the nature and status of human persons; the nature and status of the human embryo; the nature of science and technology; the nature of health and healing.

3. Selected key biblical and theological issues in bioethics, for example: the image of God and the theology of human persons; the status of the human embryo; the nature of science and technology in the context of human dominion; health and healing from a Christian perspective.

4. Selected key ethical theories and their implications for bioethics; developing a Christian theory of (bio)ethics in dialogue with alternative points of view.

5. The analysis of a selection of issues in bioethics from a Christian point of view, which may include but is not limited to topics such as the following:

o Genetics, including for example genetic screening, genetic engineering and the Human Genome Project; Transgenics;

o Human cloning, Stem cell research;

o Assisted reproduction technologies;

o Experimental medical interventions, for example: multiple organ transplantation; xenotransplantation;

o Abortion, voluntary assisted dying, and infanticide;

o Professional ethics for medical and healthcare workers.

Set Readings

This unit's indicative bibliography is currently being revised. Students should contact their home college for further details at the time of taking this unit.


Beauchamp, T. and Childress, J., Principles of Biomedical Ethics (8th edition, Oxford: OUP, 2019)

Best, Megan. Fearfully and Wonderfully Made (Sydney, NSW: Matthias Media, 2012)

Bishop, Jeffrey P., The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power and the Care of the Dying (Notre Dame, IN: UNDP, 2011) 

Brock, Brian, Wondrously Wounded: Theology, Disability, and the Body of Christ (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2019)

Caspary, Almut, In Good Health: Philosophical-Theological Analysis of the Concept of Health in Contemporary Medical Ethics (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2010)

Coakley, Sarah, The New Asceticism: Sexuality, Gender and the Quest for God (London: Bloomsbury, 2016)

Deane-Drummond, Celia (ed.) Brave New World? Theology, Ethics and the Human Genome (London: T & T Clark, 2003).

Gill, Robin. Health Care & Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Hauerwas, Stanley, Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986)

Lysaught, M. Therese, et al., ed., On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics (3rd ed; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).

McKenny, Gerald P., To Relieve the Human Condition: Bioethics, Technology, and the Body (Albany: University of New York Press, 1997).

Meilaender, Gilbert, Bioethics: A Primer for Christians (4th ed; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020)

Meilander, Gilbert, Bioethics and the Character of Human Life (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2020)

Messer, Neil, Respecting Life: Theology and Bioethics (London: SCM, 2011)

–––––––––– Flourishing: health, disease, and bioethics in theological perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013).

Mitchell, C. B. and J. Riley, Christian Bioethics (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2014)

Pellegrino, Edmund D., and David C. Thomasma, Helping and Healing: Religious Commitment in Health Care (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1997)

Singer, Peter & A. M. Viens, eds. The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)

Singer, Peter, Practical Ethics (3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Verhey, Allen. Reading the Bible in the Strange World of Medicine (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003)

Wyatt, John, Matters of Life & Death: Human dilemmas in the light of the Christian faith (Nottingham: IVP, 2009)