Warren T. Reich
Medical Ethics: The Contemporary Context The ve1-y stuff oI which medical ethics is made is constantly developing, ¡raising new questions, altering the terms oI old questions.
Medical ethics is drawing more attention today than possibly any other area in moral theology. Although the life sciences have been causing dilemmas and posing choices which frequently seem inscrutable, most of the practical, day-to-day questions of medical ethics change very little. Yet our analysis of these medico-moral problems and our response to them are subject to some degree of development, for the context and some of the presuppositions of these questions are variable. This article will attempt to give a contemporary view of medical ethics, its context and its presuppositions, in four parts. The first part will describe the tasks of medical ethics, particularly as they affect one who is engaged in the pastoral ministry. Some observations on natural law and Scripture in the second part will serve to introduce certain elements of renewal in medical ethics. The third part will set forth some of the 279