Rights and freedoms > Clauses of conscience

That we would disagree on at least some of the answers to the ethics issues posed by the new science is to be expected. But rather than bemoan our disagreements, we should welcome them, because they signal that we are engaging in “ethics talk”. That talk requires a broadly based, public conversation on the ethics that should govern scientific and technological innovation and the unprecedented powers over life it has given us.  Disagreement is also important because it's in exploring our disa...

 PDF file  Read more 

Canada is typical in this regard. Front-page stories involving the lack of access to health care are reported in the Canadian press every day. In one story, a forty-five-year-old man with end-stage cystic fibrosis was called into hospital for a lung transplant, but no intensive care unit (ICU) bed could be found for him. The surgeon could not proceed because the patient could not be cared for post-operatively. The lungs available for transplantation to this desperately ill man were wasted....

 PDF file  Read more