Dilemmas in Bio-Medical Ethics: Playing God or Doing Good?
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this cross-cultural survey of biomedical ethics, examining the moral foundations of Western medicine through case studies including abortion, contraception, cloning, and organ transplantation. The course asks how new medical technologies challenge existing ideas of kinship, personhood, and access to care around the world. Readings and discussions draw on anthropological, feminist, legal, and religious critiques of biomedical practice, giving students multiple theoretical lenses rather than a single verdict on any issue. Materials include the full syllabus, readings list, and assignments as published by MIT, free to access with no certificate attached. The course treats each case study as an occasion for structured ethical reasoning across cultures rather than advocacy for any particular policy outcome, making it useful for students of medicine, anthropology, law, or philosophy who want to see how these fields talk past and with each other.