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Glite Dictionary
bioethics

bioethics

12 6.7
The study of moral questions about medicine, biology, and medical research
  • noun
  • /ˌbaɪoʊˈɛθɪks/
  • Specialized
translation icon : bioética
  • The field of bioethics examines the moral implications of genetic engineering in humans.
  • bioethics committee
  • field of bioethics
  • bioethics education

She has truly transformed public thinking and policy on reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics.

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Examples

  • The president's bioethics commission has been looking at the following policy options.

    Academic text (1998)

  • We encounter issues of bioethics in two different ways.

    Big Think

  • Specific training in bioethics will be very valuable for social workers.

    Academic text (2011)

  • At the time, bioethics was still an emerging field.

  • Even within hospitals, patients and families may not be allowed to bring cases directly to the bioethics committee.

    Academic text (1993)

  • The questions of bioethics and medical ethics are not purely intellectual questions.

    Academic text (1998)

  • The painful dilemma of how to treat Benjamin led her to a deep interest in bioethics.

    Academic text (2001)

  • Increasingly, Farmer and Campos argue that bioethics needs to be linked through action to the struggle for social and economic rights.

    Academic text (2008)

  • In the purest sense, bioethics committees promote a democratic and pluralistic exchange of values.

    Academic text (1993)

  • She is a leading figure in bioethics and an expert in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Surface Forms

bioethics singular
bioethics plural

Morphology

bioethics = ethics (semi-transparent) = bio + ethics

The word is transparently formed from bio- plus ethics, but it is a specialized academic term whose precise scope is not fully predictable from the parts alone.

Etymology

Bioethics joins bio- ('life') and ethics ('moral rules'). Like biology, which studies life, bioethics studies the moral questions in medicine and research, so it looks at what is 'right and wrong' when people work with life.