A branch of ethics concerned with the moral and political issues raised by medical science, and with advances in medical technology, bioethics has now become a largely autonomous area of study, which intersects with topics in philosophy, legal theory, sociology, and other disciplines. Along with such traditional moral issues as abortion and euthanasia, which arguably depend in part on the level of medical technology available, bioethics is concerned with the ethical relationship between medical practitioners and their patients, and, more generally, with social justice in healthcare. At the individual level, medical decision-making has traditionally prioritized the expertise of practitioners but is increasingly shifting to a model of informed consent, which raises questions about both individual autonomy and how to provide patients with the necessary information to make informed decisions. At the community level, there is the question of whether a natural (human) right to healthcare exists and, if so, how it should be rationed.
As medical technology advances, bioethics becomes increasingly concerned with existential questions about balancing quality of life against medical expediency, the limits of medical intervention, and how our capacity to (for example) alter our genetic makeup and other aspects of biology affects our understanding of what it means to be human.
