いのちへの問いと生命倫理

宗教にとって生命倫理とは何か？

抄録

The field called ‘bioethics’ emerged in 1960s as a response to the new ethical problems given rise to by advances in medical technology. Though such medical technology has made us possible to control our life and enlarge our choice, it also has imposed us to question the essence of human existence: What is life, what is death, what are human beings? The mainstream of bioethics as a discipline, however, has been committed to check ethical problems in advance and has functioned as a complementary to the social acceptance of new medical technologies, instead of considering critically and reflectively the system of biomedical manipulation of human life from religious perspective in wider sense.

　　

In this paper I will examine how deeply bioethical problems are involved in the fundamental questions of ‘inochi’ (life and death) through comprehensive analysis of some major topics of bioethics, assisted reproductive technology, prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion, euthanasia or death with dignity, and organ transplantation from brain death donors. It would reveal how the seemingly new problems caused by a huge development in medical science and technology are rooted in the more fundamental questions of ‘inochi’ that has been addressed by religion and philosophy through the ages.