Islam and Bioethics Concerns, Challenges, and Responses

Abstract

On 27-28 March 2006, Pennsylvania State University hosted an international
conference on “Islam and Bioethics: Concerns, Challenges, and Responses.”
Cosponsored by several academic units in the College of Liberal Arts, the
conference brought in historians, health care professionals, theologians, and social scientists from ten different countries. Twenty-four papers were presented,
along with Maren Grainger-Monsen’s documentary about an Afghani
immigrant seeking cancer treatment in California.
After opening remarks by Susan Welch (dean, College of Liberal Arts)
and Nancy Tuana (director, Rock Ethics Institute), panelists analyzed
“Critical Perspectives on Islamic Medical Ethics.” Hamada Hamid’s (New
York University Medical School) “Negotiating Autonomy and Religion in
the Clinical Setting: Case Studies of American Muslim Doctors and
Patients,” showed that few doctors explore the role of religion in a patient’s
decision-making process. She suggested that they rethink this practice.
Hassan Bella (College of Medicine, King Faisal University, Dammam)
spoke on “Islamic Medical Ethics: What and How to Teach.” His survey, conducted
in Saudi Arabia among medical practitioners, revealed that most practitioners
approved of courses on Islamic ethics but did not know if such
courses would improve the doctor-patient relationship. Sherine Hamdy’s
(Brown University) “Bodies That Belong to God: Organ Transplants and
Muslim Ethics in Egypt” maintained that one cannot easily classify transplant
patients’ arguments as “religious” or “secular,” for religious values are fused
together with a patient’s social, political, and/or economic concerns.
The second panel, “Ethical Decision-Making in Local and International
Contexts,” provoked a great deal of discussion. Susi Krehbiel (Brown University)
led off with “‘Women Do What They Want’: Islam and Family
Planning in Tanzania.” This ethnographic study was followed by Abul Fadl
Mohsin Ebrahim’s (KwaZulu University, Durban) “Human Rights and
Rights of the Unborn.” Although Islamic law is commonly perceived as
antagonistic to the UN’s charter on human rights, Ebrahim argues that both
may be used to protect those who can and cannot fight for their right to dignity,
including the foetus. Thomas Eich (Bochum University) asserted in
“The Process of Decision Making among Contemporary Muslim Religious
Scholars in the Case of ‘Surplus’ Embryos” that decisions reached by international
Muslim councils were heavily influenced by local politics and contentious
decisions in such countries as Germany and Australia.
The afternoon panel, “The Fetus and the Value of Fetal Life,” focused
on specific issues raised by artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs).
Vardit Rispler-Chaim (Haifa University) presented “Contemporary Muftis
between Bioethics and Social Reality: Pre-Selection of the Sex of a Fetus as
Paradigm.” After summarizing social customs and religious literature from
around the world, she claimed that muftis generally favor pre-selection techniques
and suggested that their reasoning is guided by a general social ...