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When Policy Analysis Is Carried Out in Public

Some Lessons for Bioethics from NBAC’s Experience

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The Nature and Prospect of Bioethics

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Abstract

Policy discussions involving bioethical topics most often cap ture the attention of the public, health professionals, and elected officials when the topics are controversial and do not readily give rise to clear-cut solutions. Much has been written about the role of ethics, ethical principles, and ethical theory in the formation of public policy, and especially policy involving bioethical subjects such as end-of-life care, allocation of high technology resources in hospitals, reproductive decision making, cloning, and stem cell research. Those familiar with the bioethics literature will recognize two broad types of discussions. The first are discussions that tend to illuminate and resolve particular conceptual problems, such as the appropriate definition of terms: moral rights, capacity to consent, or just allocation of resources. The second type of discussion focuses on specific prescriptive tasks: regulations or guidelines for the protection of human subjects in federallz sponsored research; legislation to enhance access to health care; or plans to allocate organs for transplantation.

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Authors
  1. Eric M. Meslin
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Institutes for Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Franklin G. Miller

  2. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    John C. Fletcher

  3. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    James M. Humber

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© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Meslin, E.M. (2003). When Policy Analysis Is Carried Out in Public. In: Miller, F.G., Fletcher, J.C., Humber, J.M. (eds) The Nature and Prospect of Bioethics. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-370-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-370-5_4

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-61737-144-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-370-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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