The Birth of Bioethics

This is an interesting article

Pediatric Bioethics Conference - Very Interesting!

I went to the Pediatric Bioethics Conference, and it was amazing - check out the website for the event here.

Has science stolen our miracles?

Flaws are the miracle and the beauty of being human and the value of each person cannot, ultimately, be quantified. The discipline and protocols of scientific inquiry enable us to create technologies that measure, enhance, inhibit and 're-direct' physical and cognitive development. As water finds its way over, under, and around obstacles, life always seems finds a way to remain mysterious in its adaptations and spirit.
As a graduate student in the 1970's studying severely 'flawed', multiply handicapped children, I learned alot about the miracle and resiliancy of the human spirit; no quantifying the courage and humor and light I saw inside these 'creatively wired' kids...... Rapid advances in diagnostic and neurotechnologies are teaching us how to identify developmental anomalies and locate specific areas of brain function and behavior. How far should we go on this 'road less traveled'? How much are we our 'brain biology'. I honestly don't believe that any one of us can decide what the developmental trajectory of another human should be. I hope the individual human 'spirit' will remain elusive, and a miracle.

To Have and Have-Not

Considering the impact of biotechnology on human societies can be emotionally and intellectually exhausting. Moral, legal, economic and spiritual structures that inform and support our existence require a new fluidity that is simultaneously de-stabilizing and re-constructive. The rapid acceleration of research, development and application in neuroscience, reproduction and agriculture force us to reach more deeply than ever to draw up the essence of what it means to be be human. Questions that have had no historical foundation now have to be asked. Each answer has merit.
The most weighty and persuasive perspective in setting public policy for research, development, and access to the benefits and risks of the biotechnologies should be the collective voice of personal experience outside of the laboratory and the halls of academia.
Let's inform each other.
There is plenty to discuss!