Are ethical principles relative to time and place? A Star Wars perspective on the Alder Hey affair.

Kim D Arcus; Anthony S Kessel; (2002) Are ethical principles relative to time and place? A Star Wars perspective on the Alder Hey affair. BMJ, 325 (7378). pp. 1493-1495. ISSN 1468-5833 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1493

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The problems at Alder Hey Hospital around how, when, and why parents' consent should be sought for research on their dead children's tissues has raised some old philosophical questions. In particular, to what degree can practices be morally defended on the grounds of context? To help shed light on this, Kim D Arcus and Anthony S Kessel went to a different time and place and requested help from a galaxy far, far away-from Dr Luke Skywalker and his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Item Type	Article
Keywords	Biomedical Research, ethics, Child, England, Ethical Relativism, Ethical Theory, Ethics, Research, Human, Informed Consent, ethics, Moral Obligations, Pathology Department, Hospital, ethics, Personal Autonomy, Time Factors, Tissue Harvesting, ethics
ISI	180188600032