ATS1264 - Bioethics, justice and the law

The unit investigates how the law and public policy should respond to advances in medicine and biotechnology, and the role of justice in these contexts. Examples of possible topics covered include: whether employers and insurance companies should be permitted to discriminate among applicants on the basis of genetic profile; whether it is discriminatory to select against sex or disability in future children; 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 or making bad health decisions; whether people who are responsible for their own bad health should receive lower medical priority, and whether advances in knowledge in the biological/genetic bases for behaviour give us reason to doubt individual responsibility.