Suchergebnisse

The social and institutional background of this research can be summarized as the relation between public and governmental policies on the one hand, and the experience of patients and IVF experts on the other. Namely, one third of all pregnancies achieved in state-funded in vitro fertilizations (IVF) obscure some ethical and health issues, especially among patients who abandon the state-funded IVF programme in Serbia. The goal of the current research is to identify, describe and understand ethical and social issues that parents encounter in attempts to fulfil their idea of a sovereign (parental) life through IVF. The method comprised a tri-level analysis based on semi-structured interviews with participants who exhibit personal experiences of basic ethical principles and social and health needs within IVF. The results obtained indicate that all three explored levels of patients' experience build a picture of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) as a means of a sovereign or good (parental) life. However, the cultural image of the fulfilment of expected parental social roles resulted in a denial of autonomy and led to self-abnegation through silent acceptance of unethical practices. There is an overlap of the margins of secular ideas and roles on the one hand, and religiosity on the other, making such consent socially acceptable and more easily explainable. Finally, the conclusion reached is that apparently a decrease in sovereignty of parental decisions causes a loss of trust in state clinics and medical procedures, reduces solidarity (as both a religious and secular social value) and establishes norms and patterns of social injustice and inequality.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to detect causes of potential vulnerability via indicators of non-resilience among marginalized groups. These causes could become a catalyst for a major deprivation of resilience and further victimization of a group, either while disaster is occurring or in its aftermath.


Design/methodology/approach
– Exploration of resilience was based on social and economic research conducted in Serbia 2012-2013 with one of the most vulnerable communities, with the goal of mapping local understandings of resilience in contrast to issues of risk and vulnerability. A specific two layer methodology, i.e. phenomenology of desperateness was based on sociological imagination and social action.


Findings
– The author detected and labeled the most relevant socio-economic causes of miserable life conditions among the given marginal group. Such analytical dimensions become marked as the indicators of vulnerabilities. Mapping these vulnerabilities, especially among the marginal communities, is the first step in preventing their victimization.


Practical implications
– The responsible social agents are compatible with the creation of the relevant map and profile of the most vulnerable actors with the goal of preventing a possible eugenics selection during DRR and response.


Social implications
– In addition to preventing victimization during a disaster, this study provides preventives of the sentiment-driven actions induced by paternalistically organised everyday life (established by way of the same indicators) within the framework of a new totalitarian ideology, such as a para-military organization of daily activities.


Originality/value
– This paper provides a specific methodology for detecting desperateness as an inner process in vulnerability and new insights into the comprehension of the relation between social structure of marginal groups, their resilience and their members' vulnerability.

Whatever we speak about enhancement as the, just, one array of the wide range of the bioethical fields, or as the kind of ideological and theoretical field, it is necessary to emphasize relevant ideological and theoretical distinctions between different approaches. Trying to give some fundamental shape to debate among them, as well within themselves, I specified three possible streams with more or less arbitrary boundaries. First one is transhumanistic stream, whose representatives openly promote the practice of genetic, prosthetic and cognitive enhancement of human kind - transition from human to a post human society; bioconservative, whose representatives perceive a threat in the violation of human dignity, meddling in "God's business" (playing God), and in changes to the nature of human beings; representatives of the "middle standpoint" consider that danger lies within the dialectic relation of capitalism and medicine. I present the three ideological standpoints trying to building consistency through different ethical arguments. Discussing the relevant theoretical/ideological distinction between standpoints and their claims, I will argue that ideological distinction among standpoints is less relevant than contingency within their arguments. Such mutual contingence creates some similarity regarding epistemological and social issues.

Vulnerable groups, from contemporary homeless people to IVF embryos may fall between the cracks of otherwise good social values, such as government welfare programs and individual autonomy. These present and slow disasters are in principle no different from more immediate catastrophes resulting from natural events or wars that harm civilians. The failure to respond with indignation and demands for change constitutes apathy, which is also an absence of deontology. We begin with concrete examples of social apathy, in Part 1. Our examples are homelessness and IVF, neither of which are usually considered disasters but both of which are in fact ongoing disasters within normal society. Part 2. is a discussion of theoretical and practical deontology that is lacking in these examples.

Part 1: From Theories of the Self and Autonomy to Medical Ethics -- Chapter 1. A Three-Layered Understanding of the Self as Basis of a Respectful Ethics (Jörg Zeller) -- Chapter 2. What Is Autonomy Anyway? (Milijana Djerić) -- Chapter 3. Deciding for Others, and Respect for Autonomy in End-of-Life Decisions (Jovan Babić) -- Chapter 4. Narratives in Flux. Why Patients' Life Stories Do Not Provide Decisive Instructions in Cases of Surrogate Decision-Making (Michael Kühler) -- Chapter 5. The ART of Authenticity(Birgit Beck) -- Chapter 6. Remainders of the Self: Consciousness as a Problem for Neuroethics(Marco Stier) -- Part 2: From Medical Ethics to Theoretical Ethics and Lawmaking -- Chapter 7. Ethical Issues Concerning Patient Autonomy in Clinical Practice (Alfred Simon) -- Chapter 8. Patients' Rights to Refuse Medical Treatment Through the Act of Advanced Directives (Hajrija Mujovic Zornić) -- Chapter 9. Prolonged Autonomy? The Principle of Precedent Autonomy and the Binding Force of Advance Directives in Dementia (Oliver Hallich) -- Chapter 10. Individual and Collective Responsibility in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (Zoran Todorović) -- Chapter 11. Late Stage Dementia and Responsibility for Past Crimes (Annette Dufner) -- Chapter 12. Understanding 'Euthanasia' through Various Medical Practices (Veselin Mitrović).