Basic questions in bioethics today

Abstract

A mere twenty years ago a topic like "basic questions in bioethics" would most likely have been restricted to the ivory towers of academe. It would hardly have been the subject of public discussion and debate. The events of the last twenty years, though, have thrust bioethics into the forefront of public attention and concern. Slowly but surely the technological advances we have celebrated in medicine and healthcare delivery have begun to cast a menacing shadow. Exactly ten years ago this month July 25, 1978) the world focused attention on the small town of Oldham, England, where Mrs. Lesley Brown gave birth to a baby fertilized in vitro - in a glass laboratory dish - with the sperm of her husband, Gilbert John Brown. Little Louise Brown, the first so-called "test-tube baby," saw the light of day a mere decade ago. Today, there are thousands of healthy, happy "test-tube babies" in more than twenty countries.