Beyond a Western Bioethics

In Beyond a Western Bioethics, physicians Angeles Tan Alora and Josephine M. Lumitao join eight other contributors to provide a comprehensive exploration of bioethical issues outside of the dominant American and western European model. Using the Philippines as a case study, they address how a developing country's economy, religion, and culture affect the bioethical landscape for doctors, patients, families, and the society as a whole.

American principles of medical ethics assume the primacy of individual autonomy, the importance of truth-telling, and secular standards of justice and morality. In the Philippines, these standards are often at odds with a culture in which family relationships take precedence over individualism, and ideas of community, friendship, and religion can deeply influence personal behavior. Pervasive poverty further complicates the equation. Contributors move from a general discussion of the moral vision informing health care decisions in the Philippines to an exploration of a wide range of specific cases: family planning, care of the elderly, organ transplants, death and dying, medical research, AIDS care, doctor-patient relationships, informed consent, and the allocation of scarce health-care resources.

Written for both students and professionals, the book provides a much-needed perspective on how medical ethics are practiced in a developing nation, and it successfully challenges the wisdom of global bioethical standards that do not account for local cultural and economic differences.

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Angeles Tan Alora, dean of the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, is author of Handbook in Bioethics (Bookmark, 1999) and editor of Casebook in Bioethics (Southeast Asian Center for Bioethics, 1993).

Josephine M. Lumitao is professor and chief of the histology section of the department of anatomy at the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and is secretary of the Southeast Asian Center for Bioethics.

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H. Tris Engelhardt and Kevin Wm. Wildes, Series Editors

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