INTRODUCTION

The region of South Asian includes India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This chapter will focus on India and Sri Lanka to provide examples of the transition from traditional Hindu and Buddhist medical ethics, which once dominated the region to contemporary bioethics. Many of the topics of modern South Asian bioethics are foreshadowed in traditional medical ethics. These include an understanding of well-being that integrates body, mind, and environment (although the modern version focuses not just on the patient but also on patient's rights). Whereas autonomy had its precedent in concepts such as the law of karma, it was generally muted because of the group orientation of traditional South Asian societies; in the modern period, autonomy increases and with it choice and informed consent. The same might be said for privacy and confidentiality; we find precedents but they become emphasized in the modern period. Whereas regulation of physicians was a concern in the past, it has become even more so today. Because hierarchy prevailed in premodern societies, access and justice become important topics for modern bioethics.

Consciousness-raising about the importance of bioethics has occurred in part through international collaborations and forums concerned with improving health care and ethics in developing countries. The European Union has helped a hospital in Chennai, India, develop its ethics policies and several medical schools in Norway have helped establish ethics programs in Sri Lankan medical schools.