General Ethical Issues

In biomedical engineering, a distinction can be made between ethical issues in the R&D practice itself and ethical issues regarding the implications of developed techniques and devices for medical practice. Within R&D there are ethical issues regarding human and animal experimentation and the use of biomaterials, as well as general issues of R&D ethics like truthfulness and the avoidance of conflicts of interest. Next to such issues inherent to their own practice, biomedical engineers have a responsibility to anticipate the consequences of their designs for medical practice and to ensure that technologies and techniques are designed in a manner consistent with and supportive of ethical principles for medical practice. Such principles include beneficence (benefiting patients), non-maleficence (doing no harm), patient autonomy (the right to choose or refuse treatment), justice (the equitable allocation of scarce health resources), dignity (dignified treatment of patients), confidentiality (of medical information) and informed consent (consent to treatment based on a proper understanding of the facts).

Particular ethical questions arise in relation to human enhancement. Whereas the devices and techniques developed by biomedical engineers are usually designed to support therapy or diagnosis, they may also be designed to enhance healthy human traits beyond a normal level. This is called human enhancement, and it is morally controversial because it moves traits ...

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