Principles of Bioethics for Christian Physicians: Autonomy and Respect

National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. 44 Federal Register 76 (Wednesday, April 18, 1979), 23192-197.

Monagle John F. Thomasma David C. , Health Care Ethics: Critical Issues for the 21st Century, (Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen, 1998), 522–524.

Beauchamp Tom L. Childress James F. , Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 4th ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 37.

Edge Raymond S. Groves John Randall , Ethics of Health Care: A Guide for Clinical Practice (Albany: Delmar, 1999), 43–49.

Dan Clouser K. Gert Bernard , “A Critique of Principlism,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 15: 1990, 219–236.

Beauchamp and Childress, 261.

Edge and Groves, 46.

Several conditions are necessary for the principle of double-effect to be applicable. These include: (1) the initial act must be morally good, or at least morally neutral, (2) the good must not follow or be the result of the secondary bad or harmful effect, (3) the bad or harmful effect must not be intended. It can only be accepted or tolerated as a consequence of the good act, and (4) the good must outweigh the bad.

Edge and Groves, 104-7.

Monagle and Thomasma, 74.

This is primarily the work of philosophers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. This is developed further in Beauchamp and Childress 48 and Beabout and Wennemann 56.

Morris John F. , “Which Principle: Autonomy or Respect?” Ethics & Medics 23, no. 4 (1998): 3.

Caplan Arthur L. , “Can Autonomy Be Saved?” If I Were a Rich Man Could I Buy a Pancreas? and Other Essays on the Ethics of Health Care (Indiana University Press, 1992), (qtd. In Carl E. Schneider, The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Medical Decisions [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 4).

Fox Renée C. , “The Evolution of American Bioethics: A Sociological Perspective,” Weisz George , ed., Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics 206 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), (qtd. In Schneider 4).

Kant Immanuel , Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. trans. Lewis White Beck, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1959) (qtd. In Beauchamp and Childress 125).

Morris, 3.

Beauchamp and Childress, 410.

Schneider, 229-30.

Pellegrino Edmund D. Thomasma David C. , For the Patient’s Good: The Restoration of Beneficence in Health Care, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 14–15.

Jecker Nancy S. Jonsen Albert R. Pearlman Robert A. , Bioethics: An Introduction to the History, Methods, and Practice, (Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 1997), 116.

Jecker et al., 116.

Rhoden Nancy , “Litigating Life and Death,” Harvard Law Review 102 (1988): 375–446.

Beauchamp and Childress, 125.

Monagle and Thomasma, 522-3.

Veatch R. M. , A Theory of Medical Ethics (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 327–330. The author defines the principle of respect for life as “the moral necessity of avoiding actively and knowingly the taking of morally protected life.” He defines the principle of respect for persons as “the moral importance of producing good for one another and treating one another with respect, dignity, and compassion insofar as this is compatible with the other basic principles to which we are bound.”

Beabout, 4.

Beabout, 4-5.

A concise review of Kohlberg’s model of moral development is presented in Beabout and Wennemann 23-5. See also Kohlberg Lawrence , The Psychology of Moral Development (New York: Harper & Row, 1984).

Beabout and Wennemann, 50.

A comprehensive treatment of character and virtue ethics from a Christian perspective is found in Pellegrino Edmund D. Thomasma David C. , The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1996).