Bioethics and Human Rights: A Historical Perspective

Bioethics and human rights emerged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, when moral outrage re-energised the outdated concepts of 'medical ethics' and 'natural rights', rebranding them as 'bioethics' and 'human rights' to give them a new purpose. Originally, the principles of bioethics were a means of protecting human rights, but by historical accident bioethical principles have been recognised as fundamental. In this article, I reflect on the parallel development and accidental divorce of bioethics and human rights to encourage their reconciliation. The depth of the dilemmas we need to address will not disappear just because we use a common mode of moral discourse to resolve them. However, cross-cultural outreach of human rights discourse can diffuse problems of moral parochialism. Each culture has a deep-rooted predilection for treating its own conception of morality, its own notions and moral principles as fundamental. Human rights discourse was meant to be as cosmopolitan and international as the United Nations itself; it allows us to transcend our parochialism and thus focus on the essence of the profound moral challenges we face.