Bioethics Principles: Belmont Report, Definitions, Analysis
Bioethics: The Belmont Report and Its Principles
In 1974, the U.S. Congress highlighted the need to enhance the application of science and ethics at the National Institute of Health. An institutional committee was tasked with identifying the basic ethical principles that should guide research with human beings in the fields of behavioral sciences and biomedicine. The results of this committee’s work, published after four years (1978), are known as the Belmont Report. The report outlines three core principles:
- Principle of Autonomy or Respect for Persons: Individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and those with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection.
- Principle of Beneficence: Researchers must treat individuals ethically, not only by respecting their decisions and protecting them from harm but also by making efforts to secure their well-being.
- Principle of Justice: This principle addresses the question of who should receive the benefits of research and who should bear its burdens.
Key Bioethical Concepts: Definitions and Differences
- Analgesia: The medical action to reduce a patient’s suffering and pain. This may involve increasing doses of medications or treatments that could shorten life, but only as a side effect of the primary intention to alleviate pain.
- Therapeutic Obstinacy (or Therapeutic Futility): A medical process that aims to delay death as long as possible, using advanced life support methods and techniques, even if they cause more suffering for a dying person who, according to available knowledge, has no chance of recovery. This unnecessarily and artificially prolongs the agony.
- Palliative Care: Once curative treatment is no longer possible, the primary objective of palliative care is to relieve the symptoms that cause great suffering and pain in the terminally ill.
Analysis of a Bioethical Argument
Argument: “The period of development from the zygote until day 14/15 of gestation is a preparatory period for the human embryo, which is not yet a definitive human individual (uni-totipotent). Therefore, we call it a pre-embryo.”
This argument employs a logical fallacy known as “Begging the Question.” This fallacy occurs when a premise is established that implicitly contains the conclusion. A simple mathematical example: If you choose any number, add four, subtract three, add two, and then subtract the original number, the result will always be three. The conclusion (the result is three) is baked into the steps.
In the context of the pre-embryo argument, accepting the major premise (that there’s a distinct “pre-embryo” stage) – as many laws and agencies do – implicitly involves accepting a hidden premise: that the so-called pre-embryo is not a human being and therefore not worthy of moral and legal protection.
It’s important to note that no biologist accepts the distinction between pre-embryo and embryo in any other animal species. Why accept it in humans? Embryonic development is a continuous process where there is no discernible leap indicating the emergence of personhood.