Excerpt

This book draws on a wide range of sources to detail how and why bioethics became so influential in Britain, including the archives of government departments, public inquiries, universities and professional organisations, as well as private papers, published materials, press reports, television programmes and interviews. I use this material to chart the professional, social and political factors that underpinned the making of British bioethics: to show how certain individuals fashioned themselves into authorities on bioethics; to identify the various sites in which bioethics emerged; and to outline how it fulfilled different roles for various groups and professions.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
  • What is bioethics?
  • Contextualising bioethics
  • Bioethics in Britain
  • Notes
• 1. Ethics ‘by and for professions’: the origins and endurance of club regulation
  • Enshrining club regulation: medical and scientific ethics as professional concerns
  • Compounding club regulation: other professions and ‘doctor knows best’
  • Criticising club regulation and ‘the birth of bioethics’?
  • Conclusion
• 2. Ian Ramsey, theology and ‘trans-disciplinary’ medical ethics
  • ‘Brave new medical world’: IVF, ethics and ‘the biological revolution’
  • ‘The way ahead for Christian thinking’: Ian Ramsey, Anglican theology and ‘trans-disciplinary’ medical ethics
  • The scope and limits of outside involvement: differences between Britain and the United States in the 1960–70s
  • Conclusion
• 3. ‘Who’s for bioethics?’ Ian Kennedy, oversight and accountability in the 1980s
  • From paternalism to patient empowerment
  • ‘Who’s for bioethics?’ The Reith Lectures, the Conservatives and the 1980s
  • Conclusion
• 4. ‘Where to draw the line?’ Mary Warnock, embryos and moral expertise
  • From meta-ethics to ‘applied ethics’: British philosophy in the 1960–80s
  • ‘We must ALL have a say on test tube babies’: outside involvement with IVF and embryo research
  • Embryo research and ‘moral experts’
  • Conclusion
• 5. ‘A service to the community as a whole’: the emergence of bioethics in British universities
  • Involving non-doctors in medical ethics teaching
  • Creating academic centres for bioethics
  • Conclusion
• 6. Consolidating the ‘ethics industry’: a national ethics committee and bioethics during the 1990s
  • Essential or obstacle? Discussing a ‘national bioethics committee’
  • Establishing the Nuffield Council on Bioethics
  • Bioethics under ‘New Labour’
  • ‘A Question of Trust’ and the bioethics backlash
  • Conclusion
• Conclusion
  • Remaking bioethics?
• Bibliography