Bioethics on the Pacific Rim: China

A s i a n B i o e t h i c s R e v i e w D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 i n a u g u r a l e d i t i o n 40 In 1990, the Hastings Center Report published a series of three short essays entitled, “Bioethics on the Pacific Rim”. In this Inaugural Edition of Asian Bioethics Review, we look back at these articles and ask how the issues and concerns raised then apply now. We will have a series of three articles commissioned from leading bioethicists in each country exploring the developments, dilemmas and changing faces of healthcare and bioethics in the 21st century. We start our “Retrospectives” in China. Bioethics on the Pacific Rim: China Resource allocation, euthanasia, pro-creation, AIDS — these familiar issues of Western bioethics seem to know no geographical boundaries, as the following collection of articles by authors in the People’s Republic of China, Thailand, and the Philippines illustrate. Yet, the cultural embeddedness of practices and values presents a rich diversity of interpretations and resolutions. Population policies are of vital concern in China and the Philippines, but are perceived and addressed very differently given divergent underlying cultural and religious values; the character of bioethics reflection in Thailand, meanwhile, is ineluctably marked by that country’s historical legacy of Buddhism. The intersection of cultural norms and the increasing international scope of bioethics present intriguing prospects for descriptive, comparative, and normative inquiry. Courtney S Campbell Hastings Center Report, 20 (2), March–April 1990, pp. 27–28 40 Asian Bioethics Review December 2008 inaugural edition R E T R O S P E C T I V E ...