Bioethics
Faculty
Program Director: Dr. Gina Noia
Program Mission
Bioethics is an emerging, interdisciplinary field that studies what is good and bad (“ethics”) for living things (“bio”), with a focus on the relationship between human persons and developments in medicine and science. As an interdisciplinary field, bioethics considers how fields including philosophy, theology, medicine, law, and social sciences together help to answer questions about what is authentically good for human persons and about what policies best support the good for persons. As an emerging field, there is growing recognition of the need for bioethical expertise in a variety of workplaces, Catholic and secular alike, including in health care and academia. At the same time, the topics that bioethics addresses include some of the most contentious questions of today: “Is [abortion/euthanasia/transgender surgery/etc.] morally permissible?” “Is it medical care?” “Should it be legal?” While the contentiousness of the questions indicates their importance, careful answers and respectful and fruitful dialogue on these questions sometimes seem rare.
Program Goals
This minor provides students a solid foundation in the Church’s bioethical teachings, principles, and reasoning, and how to apply and defend those teachings in the sometimes complicated and confusing encounters of human life. The Catholic tradition has long considered questions of bioethics and has a wealth of deep, coherent, and nuanced Magisterial teaching as well as other philosophical and theological reflection to offer. The minor familiarizes students with such a rich tradition to prepare them to serve the Church in academia, public policy work, and hospital- or hospital system-based clinical ethics work.