Editorial: Religion and global bioethics
Darryl Macer
Email: asianbioethics@yahoo.co.nz
Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 11 (2001), 129.
In this issue of the journal there is extended discussion of issues raised by differences in religion for universality of ethics. A variety of views are presented, but importantly the discussion is made in a rational and personal way, among persons who want to seek common understanding of each other's views. This is the way that bioethics should proceed. Given that 90% of the people in the world are religious to some faith, and there is universal diversity in religiousity, the issue has to be worked through for descriptions of people's ethics. Although wars may be thought based on religion, we must work towards seeing the similarities between faiths that on the outside appear different, like polytheism and monotheism. We hope that this discussion helps towards better understanding and love between persons, and welcome further comments on the topic in future topics. This may be a little reminiscent of discussions that occurred at TRT3 in 1997.
This issue has an extended page number to attempt to catch up with some backlog of papers. This is a welcome situation for any journal to be in, and shows the wealth and diversity of persons working in the filed of bioethics. There are several papers on the issues of new genetic technology and ethics, and several papers on the relationship between doctor and patient. There is also a theoretical touch to the papers by Sadan, and Doering in this issue. We need to work towards practical theories of bioethics, both as descriptions of persons and societies, as well as prescriptions based on what we have learnt as scholars of ethics.
The program for TRT7 is becoming a little clearer, and readers please check the www site for details. I would remind persons to submit the titles if they can. The title of TRT7 is Bioethics and Informed Choice in Asia. It will discuss in the usual range of topics the question of whether the system of informed choice can be used to describe the relationship between persons in Asia, and whether it is a useful direction in the movement from paternalism and informed consent. Thus in each topic please relate it to the general question of whether there is informed choice or whether their should be. We will all be informed by the cross-cultural nature of the meeting as in the spirit of the TRT meetings.
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