Since the start of the program to investigate the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of the Human Genome Project in 1990, many ELSI scholars have maintained that genetic testing should be used with caution because of the potential for negative psychosocial effects associated with recei...

This collection of essays is the first written product of The Hastings Center’s Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities. This new initiative, which we created with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and private donors, has three aims. The first is to bring toget...

Ruth Faden, PhD, MPH, founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Bioethics, was named the recipient of The Hastings Center’s 2019 Henry Knowles Beecher Award for lifetime achievement in bioethics.

Why do citizen science projects get started, and what are the ethical challenges facing them? These questions underlie “When Citizens Do Science: Stories from Labs, Garages, and Beyond,” published in Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics,  which explores the world of science happening outside the ...

In his last article, completed just before his death, Hastings Center cofounder Daniel Callahan outlined his vision for the future of bioethics. It is “based on the necessity of finding the best balance between the benefits and harms of progress.” he wrote. “I chose progress for a simple reaso...

Public discussion and policy often cite “aging in place” as a way to improve quality of life and reduce costs of older people. However, in part because of socioeconomic differences and structural inequalities, not all older adults can live in or move to age-supportive communities, neighborhoods, or homes that match their values and needs.These challenges are the focus of a public event cosponsored by The Hastings Center and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

I have been leading a weekly ethics class for middle- and early-high school-aged youth. My preconceived assumptions about the abilities of adolescents to discuss bioethics issues have been dispelled by the depth and nuance of their insights.

What does it mean to live well on a warming planet? And as the climate changes, how might health care, education, and other sectors support, or obstruct, our ability to respond? The answers to these profound, and profoundly bioethical, questions will critically influence human well-being in this century and beyond. A group of scientists, educators, and bioethicists convened at The Hastings Center recently to consider these questions and begin an interdisciplinary conversation on how bioethics might address the challenges posed by climate change.

How might bioethics help address the threats posed by climate change? A Hastings Center meeting scoped out the options.

Across the country, billboards are popping up suggesting that vaccines can kill children, when the science behind vaccination is crystal clear – vaccinations are extremely safe.

In a recent  article in the Hastings Center Report two leading bioethicists, Mildred Solomon and Bruce Jennings, called on fellow bioethicists to “come to the aid of civil liberties and political rights,” and to use their scholarship to “clarify how . . .  individual well-being is...

In their paper “Bioethics and Populism: How Should Our Field Respond?” Mildred Solomon and Bruce Jennings have sparked an important debate about the role of bioethics in our current political climate. They warn of the risk to constitutional democracy posed by the rise of authoritarian populist re...

The smoke and the Sturm und Drang haven’t cleared from the greatest upset since Harry Truman defeated Tom Dewey in 1948 but it’s still possible to read some tea leaves about the role of bioethics in the new administration. To start at the top, one feature of bioethics that has set it apart from o...

It is too soon to know how the crisis that has been created by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union will play out.  But it is worth considering that the field of bioethics has a grave stake in the outcome.  Modern bioethics is to a great extent a product of the liberal international system ...