Dr. Abdul Wahab Suri in a session on “Philosophy and Bioethics” during the Foundation Module. His sessions continue to remain among the most popular with students, many of whom are healthcare related professionals.
Importance of Bioethics: Reflections of A Philosopher
Abdul Wahab Suri*
The Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) in SIUT, still the only center in this discipline in Pakistan, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year. Soon after the Center’s inception, Dr. Manzoor Ahmed, my teacher and the doyen of philosophy in this country, introduced me to Dr. Moazam and since 2006, I have been part of CBEC’s teaching faculty. During the Foundation Module, I introduce basic philosophical concepts, and their deep, historical connection to ethics, to students enrolled in the Center’s Postgraduate Diploma and Master’s in Bioethics programs.
human subject research or are practicing physicians who take care of patients and fight to save their lives. They are therefore individuals responsible for making decisions that can have serious moral and social consequences. Among my challenges is to help students realize the relationship of the biological human body with human metaphysical and social domains, and to grasp that the connection of the sacred/spiritual to the secular/temporal spheres in life, especially in Pakistan, is important in the totality of healing.
Establishing a formal institution of bioethics is presumed by some as a luxury to aspire to in a low middle-income country with a post-colonial society. Perhaps it is considered too daunting a task to critically discuss the moral challenges in a country where resources are severely limited and access for many to healthcare services is far less than optimum. In fact, these very factors make education in bioethics imperative.
The growth of bioethics as a distinct field of knowledge, considered to be the intersection of life sciences with ethical issues, has increased substantively around the world. The term “bioethics” was first used by Van Rensselaer Potter in the 1970s. According to him, it is “biology combined with diverse humanistic knowledge forging a science that sets a system of medical and environmental priorities for acceptable survival.”1
Potter revisited the notion of survival in a profound manner. His definition of survival did not merely imply biological survival. He believed that the comprehensive survival of human beings as a species cannot be guaranteed through ahuman, positivistic and naturalistic methodological investigations. The field of bioethics is therefore necessary since a solely objective understanding of human beings risks crossing the normative limits necessary for continuing existence on earth.
Hard sciences like biology, genetics, pharmacy, biochemistry, microbiology that rely on objective scientific facts and positivistic scientific methodologies, require incorporating the human element that is provided by humanities, philosophy and religious studies. The birth of modern medicine and its increasing reliance on biomedical technology and objectivity has excluded this feature from the practice of medicine. The growth of science/technology and unregulated research combined with the human desire to control nature and time requires ethical circumspection and tempering. This makes programs in bioethics education not a luxury, but a necessity in contemporary times.
My aim in the bioethics programs at CBEC has been to enable students not to merely understand philosophical terms and concepts, but to provoke them to move beyond scientific, positivistic ways of thinking and to engage with abstract concepts, and the ways in which these play out in their interactions with patients and families. I consider my contributions to the process of enhancing the conceptual capacities of healthcare professionals, front line soldiers in creating a healthy Pakistan, among my most meaningful roles as a teacher. It has been an honor to work with CBEC and its faculty who have made it their life-long mission to build ethics capacity in the country.
Reference:
[1] For details see, Potter, V R (1971): Bioethics: Bridge to the Future (Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press) quoted in Vijay Kumar and Deepak Kumar Bioethics, Medicine and Society: A Provocative Trilogy, op.cit. p 13.