Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part I The grounds of Christian ethics
- Part II Approaches to Christian ethics
- Part III Issues in Christian ethics
- 12 Christianity and war
- 13 The arms trade and Christian ethics
- 14 Social justice and welfare
- 15 Ecology and Christian ethics
- 16 Business, economics and Christian ethics
- 17 World family trends
- 18 Christian ethics, medicine and genetics
- Select bibliography
- Index
18 - Christian ethics, medicine and genetics
from Part III - Issues in Christian ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Part I The grounds of Christian ethics
- Part II Approaches to Christian ethics
- Part III Issues in Christian ethics
- 12 Christianity and war
- 13 The arms trade and Christian ethics
- 14 Social justice and welfare
- 15 Ecology and Christian ethics
- 16 Business, economics and Christian ethics
- 17 World family trends
- 18 Christian ethics, medicine and genetics
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
From its beginnings, Christianity has encouraged and provided health care, an activity featured in Jesus' healing and in his parable of the Good Samaritan. Over the centuries Christian traditions have also provided guidance for physicians, other health care providers, familial caregivers and patients. While often distinctive, this guidance sometimes overlapped with or incorporated, with modifications, guidance in professional oaths and codes. 'Medical ethics', which was largely physician ethics until nursing emerged in the nineteenth century, was subsumed in the 1960s and 70s under 'bioethics' or 'biomedical ethics', a broader conception for new developments and a variety of felt problems in biomedicine. For instance, medical technologies could prolong life far beyond previous possibilities, transplant organs from one living or dead person to another, detect certain fetal defects in utero and offer new reproductive opportunities. Bioethics or biomedical ethics involves an interdisciplinary and interprofessional approach to ethical issues in the life sciences, medicine and health care.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics , pp. 261 - 276Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
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