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Introduction of bioethics and its necessity in Bangladesh

Arif Hossain,  PhD Fellow, International Studies and Diplomacy, Washington University, USA. 

Shamima Parvin Lasker, Professor of Anatomy, City Dental College, Dhaka, Bangladesh  
Email: ykhsmh@yahoo.com

Bioethics is the understanding of rights, responsibilities, justices and moral interaction in living beings. It includes 
medical ethics, environmental ethics, legal ethics, business ethics and ethics in human rights & politics.   legal ethics, business ethics and ethics in human rights & politics.  Since its 
inception in 1970, the field has grown exponentially in its scope and importance. Many hospitals now employing 
bioethics experts to guide on such issues as allocation of scarce resources, how to care for terminally ill patients and 
dilemmas of doctors facing everyday for advancement of new technology.  There are at over 95% of U.S. hospitals 
has ethics committees for helping physicians, nurses and families on bioethical issues on a case-by-case basis at 
present. Thus today bioethics is not only a reasoned discourse but a matter of crisis management. 

Bangladesh is a pluralistic society with a wonderful  diversity of values and ethical  ideals.  But poverty,  natural 
calamities, lack of proper and substantial education and rapidly advancing technology people are forced to deal with 
one crisis after another. In  a result bio-ethical decision, sanctity of life is deemed to be less important than the 
quality of life.

Corruption,  nepotism,  selfishness,  misconduct  and  malpractice  are  becoming  the  common  phenomena  in 
Bangladesh. It gives the impression that we don't able to tell which values need to be employed when and which 
ethical dilemmas need our most immediate attention in our society.  Thus implementation of bioethics is needed 
urgently in Bangladesh to make the country peace and prosperity. 

Bioethics in Bangladesh

Prof Hasna Begum, Honorary Professor, Department of Philosophy, Dhaka University.

Email: lala_rukh_selim@yahoo.com

This presentation aims at showing i) poverty level, ii) environmental pollution level, iii) outdated education system, 
and iv) inadequate health services  for  over (estimated) 14 crore people in Bangladesh,  in order to evaluate the 
possibility of bioethics practice and research within the country, and also to find the reasons why bioethics activities 
have not yet found ground here by. Bioethics is a multidisciplinary approach to evaluating bioethical issues. Thus, 
the main reason for a meager presence of bioethics activities in this country is the education system, which is not 
multidisciplinary enough to encourage bioethics activities. Apathy among the academicians and professionals in the 
absence of a national education policy is  causing full implementation of a multidisciplinary system impossible. 
Consequently,  students  and  professionals  educated  in  the  present  system  are  generally  disinterested  in  other 
disciplines.  There are bioethical  issues  present  in Bangladesh  ,  e.g.,  indirect  coercion and absence  of informed 
consent  in  the  field  of  population  control,  exploitation  of  people  in  the  name  of  treatment  of  infertility, 
environmental pollution in the absence of law enforcement, exploitation of people by health insurance companies, 
unethical practices by care-givers in the health sector, etc. In conclusion it is stated that Bangladesh is an untrodden 
and rich ground for a bioethicist to do research on many relevant issues present  in the country.  The need for a 
National  Bioethics  Association  to  be  formed  by  academicians  and  professionals,  and  a  National  Bioethics 
Commission to be formed by the government of Bangladesh has also been emphasized.

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mailto:lala_rukh_selim@yahoo.com
mailto:ykhsmh@yahoo.com

