Bioethics from a Faith Perspective

Discover the spiritual community's position on bioethics issues!Bioethics from a Faith Perspective: Ethics in Health Care for the Twenty-First Century offers a meaningful, rational, faith-oriented framework for deciding how to deal with important biomedical health care issues. Organ donation, managed care, the Human Genome Project, and medical technology that keeps people alive beyond their "natural" life span are some of the topics it illuminates through case analysis and resolution. Since almost all textbooks in bioethics omit the religious dimension of life (even though the field was inspired and stimulated by religious scholars at Princeton and Yale), this is an indispensable volume.While most people state their moral positions from the background of their religious traditions, many have not had the opportunity to study the relation between their faith perspectives and the difficult issues that arise in the pursuit of health care. This book shows the relevance, significance, and guidance that a faith perspective can offer for dealing with bioethical issues.This unique and thoughtful book: - shows you how to distinguish and describe the relation between technical and ethical aspects of health-related issues - provides you with a framework of moral principles, theories, values, and faith viewpoints - teaches you the defining characteristics of a moral professional-client relationship related to faith - helps you to discern when medical ethics and faith commitments are therapeutic and when they are not - gives examples describing a moral problem, a faith perspective, and a justified position on that problem Since bioethics has been an amazing story of growth from the 1950s to the present day and is still expanding, there will be changes. Bioethics from a Faith Perspective stimulates that expansion by including the religious dimension. It is the perfect supplement to the existing literature on the subject.

Jack T Hanford, Harold G Koenig

- Foreword - Preface - Introduction - The Technical-Ethical Distinction - Chapter 1. Framework: Advancing Moral Reasoning toward a Faith Perspective - Chapter 2. The Relationship Between Moral Development and Faith Development - Kohlberg and Morality - Fowler and Faith - Similarities Between Kohlberg and Fowler - Differences Between Kohlberg and Fowler - Conclusion - Chapter 3. Is the Faith of Faith Development Christian Faith? - Question - Response - Chapter 4. A Therapeutic Christian Bioethics - Chapter 5. A Public Faith - Religion, Values and Public Life, and Biomedical Ethics - The Inclusion of Public Religion in Biomedical Ethics in America - Chapter 6. Public Faith and Religion, Medical Ethics, and Transplants - Chapter 7. Mental Health and Managed Care - Pellegrino's Faith Perspective - Managed Care - Issues and Strategies - An Update on Ethics in Managed Care for the Twenty-First Century - Conclusion - Chapter 8. Ethics in Genetics: The Human Genome Project - Chapter 9. Faith and Medical Technology: Toward an Ethics for Medical Technology - Introduction - Nineteenth Century - Twentieth Century - Use of the Technical-Ethical Distinction - Conclusion - Chapter 10. A Faith Perspective on the Elderly in Bioethics - History - Constructive Theories from William James, Kohlberg, and Fowler - A Sample Course on Biomedical Ethics and Aging - Conclusion - Chapter 11. Bioethics for Pastors from a Faith Perspective - Problems for Christianity and the University - The Need for Authentic Profession in Ministry and Health Care - Discerning the Effectiveness of Ministry - Pastors and Physician-Assisted Suicide or Death - Pastors and Complementary Alternative Medicine (CAM) - The Pastor and the Consent Procedure - Conclusion - Chapter 12. Bioethics for Nurses from a Faith Perspective - Is the Nurse a Professional? - Faith Perspective - Does Faith Contribute to Effective Practice? - Conclusion - Conclusion - References - Index