There are many different types of boundaries that the medical profession might encounter. The main boundary is the law and I will also look at boundaries in the history of medicine.
Laws restrict who practices medicine and how medicine is practised. They are made to protect all living things.
Laws for medicine differ between different countries, which shows that different people have different opinions.
For example is cannabis for medical use legal in Spain however in Bulgaria it is illegal. Bulgaria reasons that it is unethical to smoke Cannabis because it is dangerous and isn’t normally allowed either.
But how can it be that the same medical treatment is illegal in one country but legal in another?
This is because different people have different opinions. Even though Cannabis has been used since a long time for medical reasons, it was often used in less developed countries like Africa and therefore are people from more developed countries not used to it and think it is immoral, because that is what they’ve always been told. But even though some treatments are seen as unethical, lawmakers have to consider how useful these treatments can be and that they can save live. Cannabis is often used in Palliative care for cancer patients to relief pain and to create more appetite.
Laws restrict medicines. In the sixties and seventies all psychological experiments were allowed and through them scientists discovered new insights into the human brain and how it works. However nowadays these kinds of experiments are considered as being unethical and therefore are illegal. Due to this, new discoveries are unlikely to be made.
Many treatments are seen as unethical but what does this actually mean? Unethical is something that is morally wrong or not in accord with the standards of a profession.[1] Moral is often something that we have been taught or experienced, for example children whose parents have a stable relationship are less likely to become drug addicts than children whose parents are drug addicts themselves. Morality also has to do with your cultural background, for example is Female Genital Mutilation traditionally accepted in countries like Malaysia. In the UK it is seen as unethical though, especially because it doesn’t seem to have any medical benefits.
However on the other hand Laws are useful in medicine, for example in medical treatments involving embryos. Embryos are very useful to get stem cells, however without laws, companies would just overlook that they should be considered a living being and they would just use them to earn money. Like I mentioned before do different people have different opinions, for example when a foetus becomes a person. If every doctor would treat a patient according to his own opinion, for example allow abortion at different times during the pregnancy, the patients will get confused and also will some doctors just do whatever they want, without thinking about the physiological and physical consequences on mother and the unborn baby and they will also ignore if the foetus experiences pain. We aren’t sure if they experience pain and doctors shouldn’t ignore the possibility that the foetus can. Jeremy Bentham said that we shouldn’t ask ‘Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’[2] and I agree with him. If there were no laws protecting the foetus, who would be there to protect it? Very pro-choice (for abortion) people might argue that we should only consider what the parents want or others might just consider their own profit. Laws state what way it should be done and this prevents people taking advantage.
Medicine without boundaries exists in form of the Black Market. The Black Market is dangerous and people get abused in it for profit. People give parts of their bodies away for money, for example organs and there are no laws stopping this. The black market doesn’t have any restrictions and many treatments happen that would normally go against human right. Also does it increase criminality, for example kidnapping or paying people to use their body to make the most profit. With the example of the Black Market we can see that medicine needs boundaries in the form of laws.
Laws give a guideline that doctors should follow, however they also prevent new medical treatments to develop as it restricts them so it is important that their boundaries get pushed in order for new treatments to get legalised to improve medicine. For medicine to develop it is important that they are allowed to experiment and scientists might use media to accomplish this, announcing that they found a treatment for an illness because this often forces the ministry to allow the clinical trial.
Medical history shows us how important it is to push boundaries sometimes, because without people like Herophilus and Erasistratos, anatomical knowledge wouldn’t be as advanced and accepted as it is today. These two Greek physicians were the first humans to dissect a human body to find out about its anatomy. Dissection wasn’t accepted in the Classical Civilisation as the human body was seen as sacred and the Romans later on banned it. [3] But individuals still dissected or fought for dissection to be allowed. Dissection now is part of medical education and without dissections we wouldn’t be able to treat patients because we wouldn’t understand their bodies and it was only when people started realising this they became more used to it. When new procedure and treatments are developed they often aren’t accepted by the society as they are often seen as unethical. Only through people who push these boundaries and continue studying the procedure and explain it and show how useful it can be, people start to accept it. This example shows how important it is to push boundaries and continue developing treatments and procedures even if they are seen as unethical, because they will become useful in the future.
I think that as long medicine saves life and helps people who suffer, it shouldn’t be regarded as unethical because we are always told, also by the Church, to help people if we can and medicine gives us this opportunity to help. Ethics also depends on different opinions and procedures that used to be unethical are accepted now. Therefore should the medical profession always keep pushing boundaries in order to improve treatments, however it is important to have laws as they protect foetus or individuals from getting abused and to guide doctors.
Therefore pushing boundaries is good however boundaries have to exist for doctors to know that saving lives is only acceptable when other lives don’t get hurt or abused.
Laws restrict who practices medicine and how medicine is practised. They are made to protect all living things.
Laws for medicine differ between different countries, which shows that different people have different opinions.
For example is cannabis for medical use legal in Spain however in Bulgaria it is illegal. Bulgaria reasons that it is unethical to smoke Cannabis because it is dangerous and isn’t normally allowed either.
But how can it be that the same medical treatment is illegal in one country but legal in another?
This is because different people have different opinions. Even though Cannabis has been used since a long time for medical reasons, it was often used in less developed countries like Africa and therefore are people from more developed countries not used to it and think it is immoral, because that is what they’ve always been told. But even though some treatments are seen as unethical, lawmakers have to consider how useful these treatments can be and that they can save live. Cannabis is often used in Palliative care for cancer patients to relief pain and to create more appetite.
Laws restrict medicines. In the sixties and seventies all psychological experiments were allowed and through them scientists discovered new insights into the human brain and how it works. However nowadays these kinds of experiments are considered as being unethical and therefore are illegal. Due to this, new discoveries are unlikely to be made.
Many treatments are seen as unethical but what does this actually mean? Unethical is something that is morally wrong or not in accord with the standards of a profession.[1] Moral is often something that we have been taught or experienced, for example children whose parents have a stable relationship are less likely to become drug addicts than children whose parents are drug addicts themselves. Morality also has to do with your cultural background, for example is Female Genital Mutilation traditionally accepted in countries like Malaysia. In the UK it is seen as unethical though, especially because it doesn’t seem to have any medical benefits.
However on the other hand Laws are useful in medicine, for example in medical treatments involving embryos. Embryos are very useful to get stem cells, however without laws, companies would just overlook that they should be considered a living being and they would just use them to earn money. Like I mentioned before do different people have different opinions, for example when a foetus becomes a person. If every doctor would treat a patient according to his own opinion, for example allow abortion at different times during the pregnancy, the patients will get confused and also will some doctors just do whatever they want, without thinking about the physiological and physical consequences on mother and the unborn baby and they will also ignore if the foetus experiences pain. We aren’t sure if they experience pain and doctors shouldn’t ignore the possibility that the foetus can. Jeremy Bentham said that we shouldn’t ask ‘Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?’[2] and I agree with him. If there were no laws protecting the foetus, who would be there to protect it? Very pro-choice (for abortion) people might argue that we should only consider what the parents want or others might just consider their own profit. Laws state what way it should be done and this prevents people taking advantage.
Medicine without boundaries exists in form of the Black Market. The Black Market is dangerous and people get abused in it for profit. People give parts of their bodies away for money, for example organs and there are no laws stopping this. The black market doesn’t have any restrictions and many treatments happen that would normally go against human right. Also does it increase criminality, for example kidnapping or paying people to use their body to make the most profit. With the example of the Black Market we can see that medicine needs boundaries in the form of laws.
Laws give a guideline that doctors should follow, however they also prevent new medical treatments to develop as it restricts them so it is important that their boundaries get pushed in order for new treatments to get legalised to improve medicine. For medicine to develop it is important that they are allowed to experiment and scientists might use media to accomplish this, announcing that they found a treatment for an illness because this often forces the ministry to allow the clinical trial.
Medical history shows us how important it is to push boundaries sometimes, because without people like Herophilus and Erasistratos, anatomical knowledge wouldn’t be as advanced and accepted as it is today. These two Greek physicians were the first humans to dissect a human body to find out about its anatomy. Dissection wasn’t accepted in the Classical Civilisation as the human body was seen as sacred and the Romans later on banned it. [3] But individuals still dissected or fought for dissection to be allowed. Dissection now is part of medical education and without dissections we wouldn’t be able to treat patients because we wouldn’t understand their bodies and it was only when people started realising this they became more used to it. When new procedure and treatments are developed they often aren’t accepted by the society as they are often seen as unethical. Only through people who push these boundaries and continue studying the procedure and explain it and show how useful it can be, people start to accept it. This example shows how important it is to push boundaries and continue developing treatments and procedures even if they are seen as unethical, because they will become useful in the future.
I think that as long medicine saves life and helps people who suffer, it shouldn’t be regarded as unethical because we are always told, also by the Church, to help people if we can and medicine gives us this opportunity to help. Ethics also depends on different opinions and procedures that used to be unethical are accepted now. Therefore should the medical profession always keep pushing boundaries in order to improve treatments, however it is important to have laws as they protect foetus or individuals from getting abused and to guide doctors.
Therefore pushing boundaries is good however boundaries have to exist for doctors to know that saving lives is only acceptable when other lives don’t get hurt or abused.