Bioetyka w Indiach. Nowe idee a reinterpretacje źródeł

Bioethics in India. New Ideas and Reinterpretation of the Sources

India faces dilemmas and challenges typical for a fast and uncontrolled development of the biomedical services. There is a need to regulate biomedical market not only by the rules of the ethics of business exchange. Indian society suffers from misuse of biomedicine, such as trade of organs, forced sterilization of women, omitting informed consent during clinical trials, paternalism in relation between physician and patient as well as overuse of surrogate mothers etc. Recent legal initiative to ban a commercial surrogacy is a sign that a bioethical deliberation in the Indian society is on the rise. The question is if in India there exists any specific kind of bioethics or if they are implementing standards of the Western, mainly principalistic and utilitarian bioethics? The aim of the text is to describe the main features, sources and ideas of the Hindu bioethics. Although there is no single, monolithic, and coherent Hindu bioethics some common traits can be distinguished. Among them there is a core ethical value of ahimsa, holistic concept of health and a wide acceptance of genetic modifications and transplantations due to the concept of transformation of all life’s manifestations which is deeply rooted in Indian culture.

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