Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium

Description

Can the Hippocratic and Judeo-Christian traditions be synthesized with contemporary thought about practical reason, virtue and community to provide real-life answers to the dilemmas of healthcare today? Bishop Anthony Fisher discusses conscience, relationships and law in relation to the modern-day controversies surrounding stem cell research, abortion, transplants, artificial feeding and euthanasia, using case studies to offer insight and illumination. What emerges is a reason-based bioethics for the twenty-first century; a bioethics that treats faith and reason with equal seriousness, that shows the relevance of ancient wisdom to the complexities of modern healthcare scenarios and that offers new suggestions for social policy and regulation. Philosophical argument is complemented by Catholic theology and analysis of social and biomedical trends, to make this an auspicious example of a new generation of Catholic bioethical writing which has relevance for people of all faiths and none.

Anthony Fisher, OP is a Dominican friar and the Bishop of Parramatta, in Western Sydney. He is a Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics in the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and the Family, Melbourne and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics in the University of Notre Dame, Sydney.

'A work of excellent and accessible scholarship. A clear, coherent and contemporary treatment of bioethics in the Catholic tradition. Highly recommended to anyone interested in bioethics, Catholic or secular.' John Keown, Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics, Georgetown University, Washington DC 'These chapters show how the resources of the Catholic moral tradition can be brought to bear on novel and difficult bioethical problems. They will be of great use not least for those who wish to engage with a range of perspectives before coming to their own conclusions. I could think of no better or more thoughtful introduction to the discipline of Catholic bioethics.' Professor David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre 'Bishop Anthony Fisher's Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium provides coherent and comprehensive coverage of many of the most disputed topics in bioethics. With both clarity and charity, Bishop Fisher dispels the myths and misunderstandings that obscure inherent dignity of the human person. He shows the compatibility of faith and reason and ably defends Catholic teaching against critiques from both dissenting theologians and secular philosophers.' Christopher Kaczor, Loyola Marymount University '... serves as a wonderful example of the very best of theological and philosophical reflection on contemporary issues of interest.' The Tablet '... this is a fine work on a variety of questions in Catholic bioethics ... Fisher is clearly an articulate evangelical witness for the 'gospel of life', and an intellectually formidable exponent of the Catholic tradition. This is an extraordinarily fine treatment of a John Paul ll approach to bioethics.' The Thomist