Resources

Are you interested in learning more about the ethics of healthcare? We recommend the following resources to help you educate yourself and others about why issues such as physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion and other bioethical topics are so important in today's healthcare landscape.

Recent Blog Posts

Photo: Pexels

Should the Ethical Foundation of Medicine Be Subject to Popular Vote?

Apr 27, 2021
Medicine is an ethical vocation at its roots, established on principles of the Hippocratic oath, and all scientific research and medical procedures must conform to ethical guidelines and principles.
Read Article →
Photo: Pexels

U.S. Sends Shot Across Bow of UN, WHO with Multilateral, Pro-Life Health Declaration

Nov 5, 2020
The Geneva statement reflects the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy of the United States. According to HHS, the policy “negotiates health policy at multilateral settings where policies are debated and set, like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN).”
Read Article →
Photo: Pexels

Keep FDA Safety Requirements and Nix Telemedicine Abortions

Apr 30, 2020
Seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to pump up profits from abortions, the abortion industry and its advocates in state governments are lobbying to loosen abortion-related FDA safety requirements.
Read Article →
Photo: Pexels

Disassembling the Abortion vs. Childbirth Safety Myth

Feb 6, 2020
The abortion industry launched a lawsuit after the state of Louisiana passed Act 620, which required “that every physician who performs or induces an abortion shall ‘have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.
Read Article →
books

Materials

Biotechnology

Biotechnology and the Human Good

C. Ben Mitchell, Edmund D. Pellegrino, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John F. Kilner and Scott B. Rae

Some of humankind's greatest tools have been forged in the research laboratory. Who could argue that medical advances like antibiotics, blood transfusions and pacemakers have not improved the quality of people's lives? But with each new technological breakthrough comes an array of consequences, at once predicted and unpredictable, beneficial and hazardous. Outcry over recent developments in the reproductive and genetic sciences has revealed deep fissures in society's perception of biotechnical progress. Many are concerned that reckless technological development, driven by consumerist impulses and greedy entrepreneurialism, has the potential to radically shift the human condition—and not for the greater good. Biotechnology and the Human Good builds a case for a stewardship deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theism to responsibly interpret and assess new technologies in a way that answers this concern.
ChristianBioethics

Christian Bioethics: A Guide for Pastors, Health Care Professionals, and Families

C. Ben Mitchell and D. Joy Riley, MD

Living in an era of highly technical medicine is comforting and sometimes confusing. How should Christians make life and death decisions? How do we move from an ancient text like the Bible to 21st century questions about organ transplantation, stem-cell research, and human cloning? What kind of care do we owe one another at the end of life? Is euthanasia a Christian option?

Using a dialogue format, an ethicist and physician talk about how to think about thorny ethical issues. Combining their backgrounds in medicine and theology, they deal with real-life moral questions in an accessible way. C. Ben Mitchell and D. Joy Riley let readers eavesdrop on their conversation about the training of doctors, the interpretation of the Bible and controversial issues like abortion, assisted suicide, genetic engineering and in vitro fertilization. The book examines these topics under three general headings: the taking of life, the making of life and the faking of life. Christian Bioethics is a guidebook for pastors, healthcare professionals, and families—anyone facing difficult decisions about healthcare.
How-to-Keep-Mom-Out-of-a-Nursing-Home_1

How to Keep Mom (and Yourself) Out of a Nursing Home

David Fisher MD

This insider's guide helps you identify the risk factors that can take away your independence. Dr. Fisher reveals the seven most common reasons people end up in a nursing home, and he offers simple, practical steps to protect yourself from these pitfalls. This book gives you the tools you need for healthy aging, at any age. Don't wait until it is too late. Start Dr. Fisher's program today! -- "A practical guide for staying vibrant!" Dan Buettner, The Blue Zone.
Marijuana

Marijuana: An Honest Look at the World's Most Misunderstood Weed

James Avery, MD

In this cultural moment, a dispassionate, objective, and scientific view is desperately needed. Dr. James Avery has written a comprehensive and approachable book to help you separate fact from emotion, certitude from myth, and truth from spin.

This indispensable book will take you on a riveting journey as you examine marijuana through the disciplines of history, botany, science, public policy, business, faith, and medicine. These disciplines prove to be invaluable and entertaining guides as you explore holistically the complex issues facing us concerning marijuana.

Whether you are a physician, pastor, parent, politician, policymaker, or student, Dr. Avery delivers the evidence-based, research-oriented, unbiased information you want and need. Plus, he unpacks it in a way that is accessible, understandable, and user-friendly.
MedicalEthicsAnd600

Medical Ethics and the Faith Factor: A Handbook for Clergy and Health-care Professionals

Robert D. Orr, MD, CM

Clinical ethics is a relatively new discipline within medicine, generated not so much by the "Can we?" questions of fact and prognosis that physicians usually address, but primarily by the more uncomfortable gray areas having to do with "Should we? questions. Should we use a feeding tube for Mom? How should we deal with our baby about to be born with life-threatening anomalies? Should our son be taken off dialysis, even though he'll die without it? What should we do with our mentally ill sister, who has proven that she is untreatable? In this book, Dr. Orr draws on his extensive medical knowledge and experience to offer a wealth of guidance regarding real-life dilemmas in clinical ethics. Replete with instructive case studies, Medical Ethics and the Faith Factor is an invaluable resource that reintroduced the human element to a discussion so often detached from the very people it claims to be concerned about.
WhyTheChurchNeeds600

Why the Church Needs Bioethics: A Guide to Wise Engagement with Life's Challenges

John F. Kilner

Three rich and true-to-life case studies illustrate the urgency of such bioethical issues as reproductive and genetic technologies, abortion, forgoing treatment, assisted suicide, stem cell research and human enhancement technologies, to help you understand and constructively engage bioethical challenges with the resources of Christian wisdom and ministry. Leading Christian voices bring biblical and theological perspective to bear on the incredible medical technologies available today; mobilize useful insights from healthcare, law and business; and demonstrate the powerful ways the church can make a difference through counseling, pastoral care, intercultural ministry, preaching and education. This book equips students, church and lay leaders and people in health-related fields with the knowledge to make faithful bioethical decisions and to help foster a world where human beings are shown respect as people created in the image of God.
OutsideTheWomb600

Outside the Womb: Moral Guidance for Assisted Reproduction

Scott B. Rae and D. Joy Riley, MD

Nearly every infertile couple will consider assisted reproduction at some point. Yet the veritable alphabet soup of complex and often expensive options can be bewildering—as can be the advice, generally unsought, that a couple hears from loved ones and well-meaning counselors. What couples really need is information. In Outside the Womb, medical ethicist Scott B. Rae and physician D. Joy Riley explain each of today's commonly used reproductive technologies. Drawing on the rich Christian tradition of reflection on family and reproduction, they explore potential ethical issues involved in each procedure. The authors don't rule out options; instead, they equip readers to make their own wise and informed choices. Calm, compassionate and knowledgeable, Rae and Riley have provided the kind of guidebook that every infertile couple needs as they consider what is best for them and for their future family.
Supremely-Wrong

Supremely Wrong: The Injustice of Abortion

Brent Boles, MD

UNDERSTAND THE BIG ISSUE DIVIDING OUR NATION “Every political fight will eventually be an abortion fight,” stated The Daily Beast in 2017. Gallup polls confirm that abortion rights versus the right to life remains the most contentious debate in American society. Shouldn’t we discard the talking points and examine why it all matters? In SUPREMELY WRONG, Dr. Brent Boles provides an insider’s survey of the issues at stake. From helping his patients left mistreated by the abortion industry, to testifying before state legislators, firsthand accounts from this practicing OB/GYN reveal injustice at large in America. Dr. Boles opens the leading embryology textbooks to show what science says about when life begins. He exposes how the silence of the church and two-faced politicians have contributed to the national loss of nearly one million babies in the womb annually. He even shares transparently of his own pain and regret, which today fuels a life-saving mission. Applying principles of medical ethics to challenge popular pro-choice rhetoric, SUPREMELY WRONG advances the national dialogue on life issues with surprising stories and accessible logic. It’s more than research that resounds with truth. It’s a call to action.

RESOURCES

The Bioethics Brief

This Bioethics e-letter posts annually.
We think you will find its contents to be enlightening and useful. 

People are increasingly being bombarded today by challenges to human life and dignity ranging from the use of drugs to enhance performance, to sexual license leading to abortion, to genetic testing to learn ancestry and proclivity to disease. Can Christian faith offer a way to navigate such challenges?  Yes it can. The Bioethics Brief links you and others to a host of relevant Christian resources ranging from short blog posts, to web-based info, to talks to longer written resources, to study and credentialing opportunities
Navigate to this Resource