Postgraduate - UnitAPR5730 - Bioethics, public policy, and the law

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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0 points, SCA Band 1, 0.000 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Centre for Human Bioethics
Offered	Not offered in 2015
Coordinator(s)	Dr Ryan Tonkens

Synopsis

This unit provides a framework for analysing and evaluating public policy and law in areas of concern in bioethics. The unit focuses initially on what values the state ought to promote, and the formulation of public policy in democratic pluralist societies. These political moralities are then used to examine current law and public policy in areas of bioethical concern, such as abortion, pre-birth testing, embryonic stem cell research, reproductive cloning, surrogate motherhood, voluntary euthanasia, and the treatment of newborn infants with severe disabilities. The unit also considers law and public policy in relation to informed consent, conflict of interest, and the regulation of research on humans.

Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit, students should have acquired the skills to:

uncover the political values underlying views about State regulation of various reproductive and health care practices;
think critically about those political values;
understand some of the practical problems in State regulation of various reproductive and health care practices;
develop sufficient understanding of the ethics of regulating various reproductive and health care practices to provide a basis for forming your own views on these matters.