This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Bioethics

Code: 102282 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
Law OT 4

Contact

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

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

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

The teaching of the subject will be taught taking into account the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals.


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.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Practical classes and teamwork 22 0.88 14, 13, 12, 15
Theoretical classes 22 0.88 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 2
Type: Autonomous      
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

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:

1.1. 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.

 1.2. 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.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Final exam 50% 3 0.12 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 2
Practical case 25% 3 0.12 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 7, 13, 12, 15, 2
Team work 25% 5 0.2 1, 14, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 8, 11, 7, 13, 12, 15, 16, 2

Students who copy or try to copy an exam will receive a grade of 0 in that test. Who submits a practice with plagiarism will get a 0 and receive a warning. In case of reoccurrence of the behaviour, the subject will be suspended.

 
Evaluation (for attending students)

The final grade will be obtained from the following elements:

1.1 Continuous evaluation of the classes. (50% of the note)

Attendance at seminars, based on just cause assumptions, will be mandatory for students.

Teamwork 25%.

Practical case 25%.

1.2 Final exam. (50% of the note)

The final exam must be passed with a mark higher than 5 to average with the rest of the qualifications of the continuous evaluation.

Students will be assessable as long as they have completed a set of activities whose weight is equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 of the total grade for the subject. If the value of the activities carried out does not reach this threshold, the subject teacher may consider the student as "non-evaluable".

 

Single Assessment

First Part (25%). Multiple choice.

Second Part (25%). Essay question.

Common activity, same as the final exam (50% of the note).

The same non-evaluable criterion will be applied as for the continuous evaluation.

 

Re-evaluation

 There will be a re-evaluation just of the part related to the final exam. For single assessment students, the same re-evaluation system will be applied as for continuous assessment.

Themaximum grade in the re-evaluation cannot be higher than 6.

 

Use of AI

Restricted use: For this subject, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is allowed exclusively in the bibliographic or information search and the correction of texts in classroom activities. The students willhave to clearly identify which parts have been generated with this technology, specify the tools used and include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and the final result of the activity. The non-transparency of the use of AI in this evaluable activity will be considered lack of academic honesty and may lead to a partial or total penalty in the grade of the activity, or greater penalties in cases of severity.


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.

MACHIN, R., ÁLVAREZ PLAZA, C., & PUIG HERNÁNDEZ, M. A. (2023). The reproductive silk route: transnational mobility of oocytes from Europe to Brazil. Mobilities, 19(2), pp. 282–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2023.2220976

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


Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 English first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 English first semester morning-mixed