Bioethics: Principles, Issues and Cases, 2nd Edition

The most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accessible introduction available, Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases explores the philosophical, medical, social, and legal aspects of key bioethical issues. Lewis Vaughn offers students a truly unique hybrid text that combines introductory and explanatory material; a wide variety of current readings; classic and contemporary cases; and more robust pedagogy than any other text.

Opening with a thorough introduction to ethics, bioethics, and moral reasoning, Bioethics then covers influential moral theories and the criteria for evaluating them; this gives students the background to relate moral principles and theories to current controversies. Integrating seventy-seven readings, numerous cases, and abundant pedagogical tools, the book addresses the most provocative and controversial topics in bioethics, including paternalism and patient autonomy, truth-telling and confidentiality, informed consent, clinical trials, abortion, assisted reproduction, surrogacy, cloning, genetic testing, gene therapy, embryonic stem-cell dilemmas, cuthanasia and physician-as-sisted suicide, and the just allocation of health-care resources. With a lucid writing style and a focus on critical thinking that engages students and keeps them interested, Bioethics is ideal for courses in bioethics, biomedical ethics, and medical ethics. In addition, its modular structure gives instructors great flexibility in designing and teaching their courses.