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The international growth and influence of bioethics has led some to identify it as a decisive shift in the location and exercise of 'biopower'. This book provides an in-depth study of how philosophers, lawyers and other 'outsiders' came to play a major role in discussing and helping to regulate issues that used to be left to doctors and scientists. It discusses how club regulation stemmed not only from the professionalising tactics of doctors and scientists, but was compounded by the 'hands-off' approach of politicians and professionals in fields such as law, philosophy and theology. The book outlines how theologians such as Ian Ramsey argued that 'transdisciplinary groups' were needed to meet the challenges posed by secular and increasingly pluralistic societies. It also examines their links with influential figures in the early history of American bioethics. The book centres on the work of the academic lawyer Ian Kennedy, who was the most high-profile advocate of the approach he explicitly termed 'bioethics'. It shows how Mary Warnock echoed governmental calls for external oversight. Many clinicians and researchers supported her calls for a 'monitoring body' to scrutinise in vitro fertilisation and embryo research. The growth of bioethics in British universities occurred in the 1980s and 1990s with the emergence of dedicated centres for bioethics. The book details how some senior doctors and bioethicists led calls for a politically-funded national bioethics committee during the 1980s. It details how recent debates on assisted dying highlight the authority and influence of British bioethicists.
are sought-after ‘ethics experts’ with important positions on regulatory committees and considerable public authority.50 But our appreciation of how and why they attained this status is sketchy at best. Existing accounts, such as a chapter in the World History of Medical Ethics, adhere to the ‘origin myth’ model and claim that bioethics emerged in Britain after new technologies and radical politics fostered greater discussion of science and medicine during the 1960s and 1970s.51 But while issues such as clinical research and in vitro fertilisation (IVF) were
During the 1960s and 1970s Anglican theologians increasingly endorsed 'trans-disciplinary' discussion of new procedures such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in societies and journals dedicated to medical ethics. Figures such as Ian Ramsey, an Oxford theologian and later Bishop of Durham, endorsed greater engagement with social and moral issues to maintain the Church's relevance in the face of increasing secularisation. He viewed theologians as the 'common link' who facilitated debates between 'experts in different disciplines and from different occupations'. This was especially the case for discussions of medical and biological research, which Ramsey considered to be the major source of 'frontier problems' in the 1960s and 1970s. Joseph Fletcher, professor of Christian ethics at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was one of first American theologians to look at scientific and medical ethics.
The political enthusiasm for external oversight was made clear in 1982 when officials at the Department for Health and Social Security (DHSS) broke from the longstanding reliance on scientific and medical expertise. It prioritised 'an outside chairman' for their public inquiry into in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo experiments. Mary Warnock's appointment as chair of the IVF inquiry provided her with the chance to engage with practical affairs and led other philosophers to view bioethics as the most profitable branch of what Peter Singer called 'applied ethics'. While the Warnock committee, the press, scientists and politicians all agreed on the need for external oversight, there was less consensus when it came to deciding specific policies for embryo research. While the Warnock committee was disagreeing over embryo research, Robert Edwards used the prospect of moral disagreement to revive his opposition to outside involvement with science and medicine.
demand for rights depends.5 By this Warnock implies that by being human we necessarily partake of a moral domain but the thought is underdeveloped; and Harris is right to pick up on it. As an acknowledged supporter of in vitro fertilisation and embryo research,6 Harris rejects this view and denies that there is any necessary connection between being human and having moral status. Harris attacks the notion of resemblance, denying the moral significance of resemblance at the level of biology (Warnock’s claim) or because of resemblance in appearance as, for example
that this complexity poses for public policy. A short case study of government handling of another, equally complex, moral issue is considered in parallel. Intense public debate about in vitro fertilisation (IVF) between 1978 and 1982 led to the establishment of the Warnock Enquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology to investigate the social, ethical and legal implications of IVF. The Enquiry’s report was published in 1984 and led to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1991 – to no particular public interest
with the Thatcher government decision to procure Trident from the USA. The process that led to that decision was considered in detail in chapter five . Another ‘wicked’ decision was playing out during exactly the same period. On 25 July 1978, baby Louise was born to parents Lesley and John Brown in Oldham Hospital; the first human being to be conceived outside the womb using an experimental technique to overcome infertility, in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The event caused an immediate media sensation, and a flurry of
and in accordance with national legislation. The World Congress also participated in action and consultation aimed at ensuring that this would continue in the 8th Framework Programme, now called Horizon 2020. Another important achievement involved Costa Rica. In 2012 a hearing was held at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concerning Costa Rican law which prohibited in vitro fertilisation. Two doctors from Costa Rica participated in one of the national meetings of the World Congress. The World Congress deposited a third-party judgment (amicus curiae) in
infertility treatment was enacted, however, the political discussions accelerated. This stimulated new areas of debate; for example, about in vitro fertilisation – whether it should be allowed in Poland at all, and if so, for whom and how? (Radkowska-Walkowicz 2018 : 979). Public support for ARTs is high: public opinion polls in 2015 showed that 76% of Poles supported its use for married couples, 62% for unregistered relationships, and 44% for single women; 42% stated that it should be financed by the state (CBOS 2015 ). The issue
that allow selective reproductions. In the use of the term selective reproduction we go beyond the more recent biomedical definition that limits it to technologies, for instance, selective abortion, prenatal genetic diagnosis in vitro fertilisation (Wahlberg and Gammeltoft, 2018). We use the term to refer to any intervention that influences reproductive outcomes and allows only some pregnancies to be borne to fruition. Although selective reproduction is not new and has been observed for decades, we live in an ostensibly ‘post population control’ world, with lowered