Institutional integrity: approval toleration and holy war or 'always true to you in my fashion'

The advent of moral pluralism in the post-modern age leads to a set of issues about how pluralistic societies can function. The questions of biomedical ethics frequently highlight the larger issues of moral pluralism and social cooperation. Reflection on these issues has focused on the decision making roles of the health care professionals, the patient, and the patient's family. One species of actor that has been neglected has been those institutions which are part of the public, secular realm and which have a particular moral heritage.

The echo of Nuremberg: Nazi data and ethics

Over the past two years, debate about the use of data taken from Nazi concentration camp experiments has intensified. Many survivors of the Holocaust have been particularly offended at the publication of hypothermia or other data. This article argues against the use of unethically obtained data, and considers the debate from the perspective of the rights of Holocaust victims.

Fetal neural transplantation: placing the ethical debate within the context of society's use of human material

In this paper I wish to place the debate about the use of fetal tissue, as in fetal neural transplantation, within the context of society's use of, and dependence upon, human material for many teaching, research, and therapeutic purposes. I shall argue that such an emphasis is required if we are to be consistent in our approach to the ethical dimensions of the fetal neural transplantation debate. What will emerge is the ambivalence of society's ethical attitudes and also the diversity of perspectives in most debates involving the use of human material.

Controversies in research ethics affecting the future of human gene therapy

A critical analysis is undertaken of the ethical debate on two general classes of research activities that bear on the future of human gene therapy: (i) the human fetus and (ii) the preimplantation human embryo after in vitro fertilization (IVF). The conclusion is that the hope of human gene therapy and of other clinical applications of the human genome initiative is in danger because of the obstacles to research in reproductive biology and human genetics in the federal sector.

Fetal tissue transplantation research and federal policy: a growing wall of separation

The federal moratorium on fetal tissue transplantation research is creating an ever growing wall of separation between public and private research. This federal policy is based on undocumented psychological assumptions about what motivates women to have abortions, neglects to consider the suffering that could be prevented by allowing such research, disregards the fact that other forms of fetal research are performed at federal expense, infringes on the scientific freedom of federally employed scientists and compromises the federal government's ability to control the quality of research. Efforts must be made to legally dismantle this wall before it further impedes the goals of medical research.

Neural fetal tissue transplantation. Should we do what we can do?

The following factors are relevant to ethical considerations regarding fetal tissue transplantation for treatment of neurological disorders: the empirical status of human fetuses or abortuses, different purposes and sites of tissue retrieval or implantation, the therapeutic potential of the technique, the means through which tissue becomes available, possible motives, and possible donors and recipients of transplant tissue. After examining each of these, the author concludes that (1) only dead fetuses should be used as tissue sources, (2) decisions regarding abortion and transplantation should be kept separate, (3) anonymity between donor and recipient should be observed, and (4) buying and selling of fetal tissue should not be permitted.