Life and Death as Blessing: Bioethics in the Context of Technology and Autonomy, Construed Philosophically in Hans Jonas and Theologically in Martin Luther

摘要

Bioethics is ethics applied to the field of the bios, of life. As such, bioethics addresses morally relevant human actions and related moral judgments which obtain throughout the phenomenon of human life. That said, the discipline of bioethics faces its greatest challenges today as it attempts to bring moral discernment and direction to thorny questions which obtain at both the generation and the duration ends of life. For example, on the generation end of life, is it commendable for a woman to abort her unborn baby boy if she and her husband really want a girl. Is it morally virtuous to utilize genetic screening together with in vitro fertilization/embryo transfer (IVF/FT) technology if; as a result of the National Institutes of Health's Human Genome Project, we can ensure superior human intelligence, or stronger and more healthy bodies. Would it be commendable for a woman to clone her dying husband so that she might have a living remembrance of him after his death, and be able to continue to show him love and care.