Contemporary Issues in Bioethics

This anthology represents all major points of view on the central topics in bioethics. It contains current essays and actual medical and legal cases written by outstanding scholars from around the globe. The book provides readers with diverse views from many standpoints, including medical researchers and practitioners, legal experts, and philosophers.

Tom Beauchamp is Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He received graduate degrees from Yale University (Divinity) and Johns Hopkins University, where he received his Ph.D. in in philosophy 1970. He then joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown University, and in the mid-70s accepted a joint appointment at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. In 1976, he joined the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he wrote the bulk of The Belmont Report (1978). Dr. Beauchamp's research interests are in Hume and the history of modern philosophy and practical ethics, especially biomedical ethics and business ethics.

LeRoy Walters is the Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. Professor of Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He received his BA from a small Pennsylvania liberal-arts college, Messiah College, and a B.D. degree at the Associated Mennonite Seminaries. He then studied for two years in Germany, one year at the University of Heidelberg and one year at the Free University of Berlin. Walters returned to the United States and received his PhD in Christian ethics from Yale University. In 1971, Walters joined the newly-established Kennedy Institute of Ethics as the first faculty member appointed to a multi-year term. He served as director of the Institute from 1996-2000. His interests are in the ethical issues in human genetics, and since 2003 Dr. Walters has devoted major attention to Holocaust Studies and to the "euthanasia" program initiated in 1939 under National Socialism.