Reflection on CBHD’s 14th Annual Conference Bioethics Nexus

July 14, 2007

“Bioethics of the 20th century pales in comparison with the spectre of bioethics in the 21st century,” declared Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D., as he opened the 14th Annual CBHD conference, entitled Bioethics Nexus. With a view to the future, but one with the past clearly in the rearview mirror, Dr. Cameron addressed the crowd in “How Did We Get Here? 25 Years of Bioethics Engagement.”

Never one to shy away from truth, particularly inconvenient ones, Cameron described the current situation as one in which “we have gone from medical ethics questions to questions about how we should make our private choices.” Further, “the abortion debate both catalyzed and misinformed the church, since it suggested that this vast moral and policy question was a function of a disagreement about ‘when life begins.’ This both marshaled and misled, for the question has always been What is man? – not When is man?”

Many voices clamor for attention with a particular view of humankind in mind. It isn’t enough to be convinced in one’s own understanding regarding the answers to these essential queries, opined Cameron; we must seek to find and build upon common ground with others, despite some widely divergent views. This is nowhere more true than in the emerging technologies of artificial intelligence, synthetic technology, and the brain-machine interface.