Class-Baiting Bioethics

An article attacking the lack of bioethics attention to global justice issues by Canadian bioethicist Leigh Turner in the British Medical Journal is a classic in class-baiting:

Researchers looking for the next big thing are shifting toward the study of 'neuroethics' and genetic 'enhancement technologies' supposedly on the verge of propelling us into a 'post-human future.' In contrast bioethicists rarely address urban poverty and inner city violence, even though poverty and violence raise important issues related to health....bioethics risks becoming a source of entertainment and spectacle in wealthy societies whose inhabitants overlook the poverty and suffering found throughout most of the world....

Perhaps one reason bioethicists are reluctant to address global ethical issues related to health, illness, and poverty is that bioethicists are deeply embedded in a global economic system that depends on the continued existence of impoverished societies... Many jobs are shifting from developed nations to poorer countries with low hourly wages, few work-place benefits, minimal health and safety standards, and patchy environmental regulations. Many of the goods enjoyed by citizens of wealthy nations are available for consumption because of the continued existence of massive economic disparities between wealthy and poor nations.

Most of us would prefer not to confront the incredible disparity between living as a professor or clinician in a smart apartment in Manhattan and eking out a living in one of China's rapidly industrialising districts or a shantytown in South Africa... many bioethicists continue to see these questions as macrosocial economic issues falling outside the proper scope of bioethics. And yet questions of health and illness—and ethical issues related to health systems, social institutions, and economic policies—are connected to global markets and financial institutions.

Hey Leigh! You can be concerned about our posthuman future and global equity and health at the same time. Nor is the posthuman future simply of concern to people in the developed world.