CHB1020 - Biotechnology, justice and the law

Leader(s): Linda Barclay

Offered

Clayton Second semester 2009 (Day)

Synopsis

The unit investigates how the law and public policy should respond to advances in medicine and biotechnology and covers: whether employers and insurance companies should be permitted to discriminate among applicants on the basis of their genetic profile; whether the law should protect individuals' genetic privacy or whether we have a duty to share our genetic knowledge; whether the law should act paternalistically to prevent people from harming themselves; whether people who are partly responsible for their own bad health should receive lower priority of care in hospitals, or whether advances in knowledge in the biological bases for behaviour give us reason to doubt individual responsibility.

Objectives

On successfully completing this unit, students will have:

1. familiarity with the key philosophical approaches to discrimination, autonomy, responsibility and equality as they apply to debates within bioethics
2. skills enabling them to think critically about key ethical, policy and legal issues raised by recent advances in medicine
3. biotechnology; the ability to make informed judgements about those ethical, policy and legal issues.

Assessment

Written work: 60% (2500 words)
Exam: 35%
Tutorial performance: 5%

Contact hours

2 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week

Additional information on this unit is available from the faculty at:

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/bioethics/ugrad/chb1020.php