Development of bioethics in Russia

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleРазвитие биоэтики в России
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Asliturk, Miriam
5. lemma category Ethics - Scientific theories and disciplines > Biology - Scientific theories and disciplines > Medicine
6. Publication date 03-10-2018
7. lemma work Петров, Рэм Викторович [Author]. Развитие биоэтики в России
8. lemma manifestations Казанский медицинский журнал
9. Keywords Higher education - ecological crisis - bioethics - Russian Orthodox Church - organ transplantation - Russian Academy of Sciences - biomedical technology
10. Url Click Here
11. Citations
    1. <p>Петров, Р. В., & Юдин, Б. Г. (2008). Развитие биоэтики в России. <em>Казанский медицинский журнал</em>, 89 (4), 387-394.</p>
12. Lemma body

    1. The authors states that the first bioethical problems were formulated in Russia at the end of the 1980s. This was also the first the time that the Russian Orthodox Church joined the dialogue on ethics in medicine. The first conference on bioethics concerning donor organ transplantation was held in 1990 at the USSR’s surgery research centre. In 1992, the Russian Academy of Sciences created the Russian National Committee for Bioethics (RNCB) within the Institute of Human, headed by B. Yudin until 2004. Afterwards it was the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by P. Tishenko, which became the main academic centre for bioethics in Russia. The RNCB published several important documents on bioethics and participated in developing regulations on bioethics in Russia, notably on the temporary prohibition of human cloning in 2002. In 2001 a course on bioethics became compulsory for medical schools in Russia. However, technical and biology universities and departments have not integrated bioethics courses into their curriculums yet. Currently the main work on bioethics in Russia is Biomeditsinskaya etika by V. Pokrovsky and Y. Lapukhina.

       The authors admit that an important discussion is needed to formulate bioethical norms in Russia and they suggest cooperation between the medical community and philosophers. Today bioethics is important not only in medicine but also in the use of new biotechnologies in agriculture, heavy industry, and space exploration. This makes the border between ecological ethics and bioethics seem to disappear. Bioethics is closely linked to the legal side of the problem. For example as far as life and death questions are concerned, it is not always clear when the death of a patient can be declared and his body prepared for organ transplantation or how the donor-recipient interaction should be organized.

       As well, many international organizations such as the UN, UNESCO, World Health Organization, Council of Europe, European Union and the WHO's Strategic Initiative for Developing Capacity in Ethical Review have issued documents on bioethics. The latter had a forum on bioethics for former Soviet republics. Many Russian specialists have contributed to the formulation of international documents on bioethics, for example the academic R. Petrov who had been part of UNESCO’s bioethics committee for many years. A Russian committee on bioethics was organized in 2005 to work with UNESCO. Right now there is an on-line resource supported by UNESCO on bioethics in Russia: www.bioethics.ru.