Could Human Rights Supersede Bioethics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16765100 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rachelle Ashcroft (0000-0001-6065-4717, Queen Mary University of London, corresponding author), R E Ashcroft |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 639-660 |
| Publication date | 2010-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Rights Law Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1461-7781 • E-ISSN: 1744-1021 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hrlr/ngq037 |
| OpenAlex | W2117731906 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 2 |
Bioethics and human rights are now well-established sets of norms, practices, institutions and methods for regulating the life sciences and medicine in the public sphere. Recent scholarship, and to some extent states' practice, in the governance of the life sciences and medicine have suggested that the field of bioethics may become subsumed into human rights law and practice. In this article, I discuss the current relationship between bioethics and human rights as public discourses and practices of governance of the life sciences and medicine, focussing particularly on human biomedicine. I analyse the thesis, notably associated with Australian health lawyer Thomas Faunce, that international human rights law will subsume bioethics. I argue that there are various theoretical and practical difficulties in the way of this thesis, but that these may be overcome. My claim is that if they are overcome, it will not be due to intellectual necessity, but to do with historical and political contingencies. Both bioethics and human rights must be understood as messy practices emerging from the interplay of doctrine, intellectual debate, institutional form, political interests and the actions of interested parties. The question will be not, could human rights supersede bioethics, but rather, which interests would be served by such a convergence?
Bioethics · Biomedicine · Doctrine · Environmental ethics · Human rights · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Patient Dignity and Privacy · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.22 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |