Diskussionsforum medizinische Ethik最新文献

The article explores the responsibility of the physician in reproductive medicine as a therapist of the couple and the child. It is based on the understanding of responsibility as a term with six relations. The article emphasizes that responsibility can only be ascribed to the physician with regard to the structure of the physicians acting.

New technologies in medicine dramatically open a twilight-zone of ignorance between life and death. The argument shows that the present definition of brain death as the death of a human person is a convention with a specific philosophy behind. You will meet the problem with more accuracy when referring to an ethics of intransparence that allows an individual decision with respect to certain qualified conditions. Only from this starting-point the informed ex ante consent for an organ donation seems to become the only conclusive but at the same time justified decision.

The message of the resurrection from the dead is meant to human beings living and dying in the unity of body and soul. The personality of man is unseparably connected with this unity--even beyond the death. The brain death only marks a (decisive) point during the process of dying, but the brain death cannot be defined as the death of a human being (in general). Theological ethics object to this definition and to a new dualism of brain and body as well as of body and personality (resp. soul), because this dualism socializes the organs of individuals and denies the personal dignity of disappearing life. Therefore the explantation of organs must depend on a personal declaration of consent given by the adult sponsor himself. And each information given on organ transplants must clarify that the explantation of organs means an interruption of dying.

There are 2 important philosophical traditions discussing the moral problem of suicide. One tradition rejects suicide as an immoral act that is against either an absolute or transcendent order, or against socio-political responsibilities, or against the duties one has to obey with respect to your own individual life. The other tradition argues that a specifically "qualified" suicide is a morally good privilege of human freedom and self-determination. Weighting the pros and cons the debate seems to end in a drawn game, perhaps with little advantages for the position against suicide. In any case, in the end it comes down to the very question whether a human being is still able to experience that it is good that he exists and that it is good to be engaged in this existence or not.

In accordance with the Jewish view human life begins with the first breath. The consequences following are wide reaching for the bioethical arguing within prenatal medicine and abortion in particular. The Jewish understanding of the beginning of life is based on theological grounds (like the special emphasis on this life or the principle of "actuality before potentiality"). whose consequences are philosophically contestable.

"Lebenshilfe" (help in living) is of crucial importance for the organization of live of persons with a handicap. This help in living, training and social integration, however, requires an image of the handicapped person that unrestrictedly recognizes her right to live and to be a human being with a handicap. But todays hedonistic and preference-utilitarian social trends make other, selecting value judgements. This article comments on these dubious ethical positions critically and develops a paradigmatic, positive point of view. This statement is partly based on the principles of 2 self-help organizations of the same name ("Lebenshilfe für geistig Behinderte") in Germany and in Austria.