Intellectual Property & Your Health Series - Policy making

Shidonna Raven
May 20
2 min read

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

Before you go to the Doctor!

Policy making

The importance of the social and legal issues addressed in bioethics is reflected in the large number of national and international bodies established to advise governments on appropriate public policy. At the national level, several countries have set up bioethics councils or commissions, including the President’s Council on Bioethics in the United States, the Det Etiske Råd (Danish Council of Ethics) in Denmark, and the Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique (National Consultative Bioethics Committee) in France. Elsewhere, as in the United Kingdom, there are a variety of different bodies that consider bioethical issues. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has taken on the role of a national bioethics committee to a certain extent, but there also are national bodies that deal with specific fields, such as the Human Genetics Commission.

Several international organizations also are involved in policy making on bioethical issues. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), for example, has an International Bioethics Committee; the Human Genome Organisation has an Ethics Committee; and the Council of Europe has issued the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine. The proliferation of such committees is evidence of the increasing political influence of the work performed by bioethicists. Indeed, acquaintance with developments in bioethics arguably is becoming an important aspect of national and global citizenship. At the same time, however, the role of bioethical experts on advisory or decision-making bodies has itself become a topic of study in bioethics.