Biology

Bioethics is an intersection of biology and philosophy which analyzes the types of work that biologists do and analyzes the ethical, social, and legal repercussions of that work. These ethical concerns can focus on issues of healthcare/public health (how can the discovery impact our ability to provide healthcare to all people), research (how the research is done and what biases may be included in this research), and environmental (how our research may impact the environment). Additionally, bioethics is also concerned about the relationship between researchers and the financial donors. To be an ethical biologist, one must keep all of these ideas in mind while doing research. 

Bioethics would get its start in the 1960s, with the development of Informed consent in regards to medical procedures. During this time, president John F Kennedy also argued that consumers have the right to be safe, informed, and to choose what they feel is right. These served as the moral underpinnings of Bioethics. Bioethics would start to become a major issue around the start of the 21st century, with major developments in genetics such as the cloning of Dolly the Sheep in 1996, the development of the therapeutic properties of stem cells, and the Human Genome Project from 1990-2003. These brought up the issues of people's right to their own biological resources. This resulted in the United Nations drafting the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. 

Some major issues in bioethics today include: 

• CRISPR is a process that allows scientists to edit an organicism's genome for the purposes of putting helpful mutations into the organism. 
  • Should CRISPR be applied to humans? 
  • What are the ethical repercussions for changing an organism's genome? 
  • By placing value on certain traits and devaluing others to the point of editing it out of our genome, does that have the potential to do harm to groups of people with particular traits (Eugenics) 
• With CRISPR and other groups finding value in the messages encoded in our DNA, who owns the rights to your DNA? 
• Much of our food has been genetically modified. In theory, genetically modified food has the opportunity to grow more food in a smaller amount of land. 
  • What health effects are there to consuming genetically modified food? Have there been adequate safeguards and tests done on that sort of food? 
  • How does modifying food impact cultures who have connection to the food they grow? 
  • Do genetically modified organisms enrich the farmers who grow the food or the companies who produce them? 
• Stem Cells are a type of cell that have not been differentiated yet, meaning that they can grow into many different types of cells. For many biologists and doctors, these cells have incredible use in various therapies such as re-growing bone marrow or heart cells. However, many people have moral issues with stem cell research since the most medically useful stem cells are harvested from embryos. 
  • In 2009, the National Institute of Health created guidelines for the ethical use of stem cells outlining how stem cells can be harvested and used. 
• What rights do people have, as they are nearing the end of their lives, to decide whether or not they want to end their life prematurely with the assistance and approval of a physician (Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia)? 
• A lot of experimentation in biology and medicine is done on animals before it is done on humans.
  • What rights do animals have in experimentation settings?
  • Is it morally right to experiment on something that cannot give informed consent? 
• With the rise of more and more advanced artificial intelligence, many scientists in the field of computer science and biology have asked the question of what does it mean to be sentient? Along those lines, the question then becomes when do we define artificial intelligence as a living being with the rights of a human being.