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2022/2023

Bioethics

Code: 102282 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500786 Law OT 4 1

Contact

Name:
Marc Abraham Puig Hernandez
Email:
marcabraham.puig@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
english (eng)
Some groups entirely in English:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
No
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Teachers

Adrian Pascale

Prerequisites

Intellectual interest and discursive and critical ability to analyze new challenges posed by the scientific advances in the fields of life sciences and biomedicine.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Analysis of the historical and scientific context in which "Bioethics" is born.
 
Identification of the new problems and current debates generated by the new advances in the field of life sciences and biomedicine, especially those derived from the use of Assisted Reproductive Techniques.
 
Study of the existing legal regulation.
 
Understanding of the plurality of ideas and values around these issues in today's democratic societies.
 
Create an appropriate space of debate to facilitate the adoption of personal positions based on possible consensus, to evaluate the legal regulations, existing social conventions and moral convictions.

Competences

  • Arguing and laying the foundation for the implementation of legal standards.
  • Demonstrating a sensible and critical reasoning: analysis, synthesis, conclusions.
  • Drawing up legal texts (contracts, judgements, sentences, writs, rulings, wills, legislation...).
  • Identifying and solving problems.
  • Identifying, assessing and putting into practice changes in jurisprudence.
  • Integrating the importance of Law as a regulatory system of social relations.
  • Students must be capable of demonstrating a critical awareness of the analysis of the legal system and development of legal dialectics.
  • Students must be capable of perceiving the impact and implications of the decisions taken.
  • Students must be capable of producing initiative, creative and innovative knowledge, as well as new ideas.
  • Students must be effective in a changing environment and when facing new tasks, responsibilities or people.
  • Working in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields.
  • Working in teams, being either a member or a coordinator of working groups, as well as making decisions affecting the whole group.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Applying the current discussions about gender and law, bioethics, law and technology and sociology of law to the legal practice.
  2. Associating law and current social problems.
  3. Demonstrating a sensible and critical reasoning: analysis, synthesis, conclusions.
  4. Describing the evolution of jurisprudence in relation to the contemporary problems about gender and law, bioethics, law and technology and sociology of law.
  5. Distinguishing the different critical contributions to the theory of Law.
  6. Exploring the law-society relations in the fields of gender and law, bioethics, law and technology and sociology of law.
  7. Identifying and solving problems.
  8. Identifying in the jurisprudence the several problems proposed by subject.
  9. Identifying the problems of law implementation.
  10. Identifying the socio-legal problems in the current socio-legal theories.
  11. Interpreting the contributions of gender and law, bioethics, law and technology and sociology of law.
  12. Students must be capable of perceiving the impact and implications of the decisions taken.
  13. Students must be capable of producing initiative, creative and innovative knowledge, as well as new ideas.
  14. Students must be effective in a changing environment and when facing new tasks, responsibilities or people.
  15. Working in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields.
  16. Working in teams, being either a member or a coordinator of working groups, as well as making decisions affecting the whole group.

Content

Contents:
1. Origins: science and technology during the twentieth century; definitions of Bioethics; bioethical conflict resolution.
2. Gender, moral pluralism and cultural diversity.
3. Bioethics and Law: regulating medicine; informed consent; Bioethics committees.
4. Technology and Big Data: research; user information; new technologies and information technologies vs. fundamental rights.
5. Health treatments: human and animal experimentation; patients' rights; medical record privacy.
6. Sexual and reproductive rights: sex education and contraceptive methods; abortion; conscientious objection of health professionals.
7. Assisted Reproduction I: Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques; embryoslegal status; gamete donation and anonymity.
7. Assisted Reproduction II: surrogacy; reproductive cloning; individual freedom, contract and market.
9. Human Genetics: Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis; gene therapy; genetics and eugenics.
10. The end of life: treatment refusal; palliative care and terminal sedation; euthanasia.
11. Justice and Health: health resources allocation; equality and health; obligations towards future generations.

Methodology

The teaching of the subject and the training of the students will be done during the course based on the following activities:

 
 
 
1. Targeted activities:
 
 
 
1. Theoretical classes: students will achieve reach the theoretical framework of the subject and their contextualization. These activities require less interactivity and are conceived primarily as a one-way method of transmitting knowledge from the professor to the students.
 
 
 
2. Practical classes: students analyze, together with the professor, documents, legislation and other materials to critically understand what is explained in the theoretical classes.
 
 
 
2. Supervised activities: Activities developed by students with the supervision and support of professors.
 
 
 
3. Autonomous activities: Elaboration of cases that will be exposed and discussed in the classroom; search of bibliography and material complementary to the one facilitated by the professor; Comprehensive reading of texts and critical analysis of audiovisual materials.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Practical classes and teamwork 22.5 0.9 14, 13, 12, 15
Theoretical classes 22.5 0.9 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 2
Type: Autonomous      
Assessment 5 0.2 14, 3, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 15
Exam preparation 57.5 2.3 1, 14, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 13, 15, 2
Reading 37.5 1.5 1, 9, 11, 13, 12, 15

Assessment

Evaluation:
 
The final note will be obtained from the following elements:
 
1. Teamwork (25% of the final mark)
 
2. Practical case (25% of the final mark)
 
2. Final exam (50% of mark): This mark must exceed 5 in order to average with the remaining m,arks of the continuous evaluation.
 
 
The re-evaluation will be done by repeating the final exam. Both teamwork and practical are not reassessed.
 
A student who cheats or try to cheat an exam will have a 0 as a mark. A Student who submits a paper o practical in which there is evidence of plagiarism will have a 0 as a mark and will receive a warning. In case of repetition, the students will fail the subject.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Exam 50% 2 0.08 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 2
Practical case 25% 1 0.04 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 7, 13, 12, 15, 2
Team work 25% 2 0.08 1, 14, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 13, 12, 16, 15, 2

Bibliography

ÁLVAREZ PLAZA, Consuelo & RIVAS, Ana M. (2020): Etnografía de los mercados reproductivos: actores, instituciones, legislaciones, Valencia, Tirant lo Blanch.

BOLADERAS, Margarita (ed.) (2012): Bioética, Género y Diversidad cultural, Barcelona, Proteus.

CASADO, María & ROYES, Albert (coords.) (2012): Sobre bioética y género, Navarra, Thomson/Aranzadi.

CASADO, María & LÓPEZ BARONI, Manuel (2019): Handbook of secular Bioethics (I) Key Issues, Barcelona, Edicions Universitat de Barcelona. Available in: http://www.bioeticayderecho.ub.edu/sites/default/files/handbook-secular-bioethics-i.pdf

DE LORA, Pablo; GASCÓN, Marina (2008): Bioética. Principios, Desafios, Debates, Madrid, Alianza Editorial.

Documents on Bioethics and Big Data: exploitation and commercialisation of user data in public health. Available in: http://www.publicacions.ub.edu/refs/observatoriBioEticaDret/documents/08209.pdf

DOLGIN, Janet L. (2005): Bioethics and the Law, New York, Aspen Publishers.

DICKENSON, Donna (2012): Bioethics: all that matters, London, Hodder Education.

DWORKIN, Ronald (1994): El dominio de la vida, Barcelona, Ariel.

HABERMAS, Jürgen (2002): El futuro de la naturaleza humana ¿Hacia una eugenesia liberal?, Barcelona, Paidós.

KUHSE, Helga and SINGER, Peter (2011): A companion to Bioethics, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

RODEN, David (2017) “Humanism, Transhumanism and Posthumanism”, available in: https://www.academia.edu/353704/Humanism_Transhumanism_and_Posthumanism

ROMEO CASABONA, Carlos M. (dir.) (2022): Manual de Bioderecho, Madrid, Dykinson.

SANDEL, Michael J. (2012): What money can’t buy: the moral limits of the markets, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

SANDEL, Michael J. (2007): The case against perfection: Ethics in the age of genetic engineering, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

SINGER, Peter (1993); Practical Ethics, second edition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

SINGER, Peter (2009): Animal Liberation: a new Ethics for our treatment of animals, New York, Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

SINGER, Peter & KUHSE, Helga (1999): Bioethics. An Anthology, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing.

TOMLINSON, Tom (1998) “Balancing Principles in Beauchamp and Childress” Michigan State University. Available in: https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Bioe/BioeToml.htm

 

Software

The subject does not requiere any specific software