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Description
This essay is divided into five parts. The first will examine, in broad-brush, bioethics as a discipline, language and political movement. The second explores the politics of morality and the role bioethicists have in assisting with the tasks of judicial decision making. Part three tackles the feasibility of promoting a deliberative democracy within the New Age of Biotechnology. Part four considers forensic or scientific evidence. And, the final section of this essay considers how Elizabeth Taylor, Reva Shane Lewis of the CBS soap opera, "The Guiding Light," Thomas Donaldson and the sheep, "Dolly," shape the contours of this new age of biotechnology and, indeed, present fascinating contemporary paradigms of the diversity confronting the judicial system as it attempts to cope with the startling advances of The New Biology.' My major premise, minor premise, and conclusion are one in the same for they conduce to an acceptance of the fact that the social constructs and legal tools necessary for the modern judiciary to meet head-on and deal with the contentious issues of bioethics and biotechnology are already in place. To resolve problems arising from these potential quagmires, perhaps the major concern is for the courts to remain forever vigilant to the interlinking relationships or synergistic forces found in law, science, ethics and medicine. Without vigilance and enhanced awareness of the dynamic and fluid situation here, both the bench and the bar "will increasingly lack understanding of the questions to be asked, let alone the answers to be given" in this New Age of Science.'
Publication Date
1998
Disciplines
Bioethics and Medical Ethics | Law | Science and Technology Law
Recommended Citation
Smith, George P. II, "Bioethics and the Administration of Justice" (1998). Faculty Books. 145.
https://scholarship.law.edu/fac_books/145