Themes and Schemes in the Development of Biomedical Ethics

Abstract

After noting the principal themes in the brief history of bioethics, this essay turns to a consideration of the implications of the human genome project, which implications have clearly stretched our moral imagination well beyond traditional limits. Analysis of that history, especially its most recent articulation in the ‘new genetics,’ makes evident a central theme—namely, questions at the heart of life before birth, especially individual uniqueness and, therefore, identity or what is termed the “personal enigma” posed by the unraveling of the human genome and efforts at cloning. Indeed, the perplexing wonder within this remarkable development is a labyrinth at once deeply personal, and yet also social, historical, and conceptual. Who are we? Who am I? How is each of us connected to that body we experience as our own?