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In either case, the feeling that surrounds "a village" is that of love: the village's love for the child. It may be tough love; it may be love that is suckled from a mothering entity's teat. What I question is not the fierce, almost animalistic protective feelings that any village of people may develop for one child. I know that a group of humans will and often does protest any injustice that may strike one individual; for example, examine the case of Terry Schiavo, the comatose woman whose right to unending physical life support was debated to the point that supporters of each side still chased one another in philosophical circles long after the question was resolved. When compared to the relative apathy for many plights that cause the masses to suffer, the support garnered for Schiavo is nothing short of super-human.................
Teen Talk: Teenhood Today: Humans can't take suffering of masses
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Citing "moral panics" such as the public debate over physician-assisted death, Northwestern University Professor Tod Chambers challenged scholars and students to reconsider conventional boundaries of bioethics.
Chambers' speech sparked a robust dialogue with audience members Friday at the opening event of the 11th annual National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference, a two-day event focused on the “The Human Use of Human Beings in Medicine and Science."
The speech, titled "Witches, Punks and Bioethicists," dealt with moral panics such as the Terri Schiavo case, which Chambers described as a tool to “denounce and reaffirm” societal values.
“The nature of bioethics is taking issues that are causing social disease and putting them into categories,” Chambers said. “I don’t think the boundaries bioethicists have put forward are all that challenging.”
Chambers is president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanties (ASBH), which helps organize the conference each year, and author of “Narrative Bioethics and Prozac as a Way of Life.” He described bioethics as a “concept that is still being defined” and pushed students and scholars at the conference to rethink conventional ethical boundaries surrounding issues like euthanasia, gene therapy and gender reassignment surgery.............
Bioethics the topic of national conference under way at Union
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