Bioethics at the Movies

Sandra Shapshay is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Philosophy and affiliate faculty at the Center for Bioethics at Indiana University.

• List of ContributorsPrefacePart I: On Babies, Test Tubes, and Sex the Old-Fashioned wayChapter 1. "I give Them What The Want – Either an Orphan or an Abortion": The Cider House Rules and the Abortion IssuesChapter 2. Reading Citizen Ruth Her Rights: Satire and Moral Realism in the Abortion DebateChapter 3. Homo Sapiens, Robots, and Persons in I, Robot and Bicentennial ManChapter 4. The Babe Vegetarians: Bioethics, Animal Minds, and Moral MethodologyPart II: The Quest for "Better" or Even "the Same" PeopleChapter 5. "No Gene for Fate?": Luck, Harm, and Justice in GattacaChapter 6. Lifting the Genetic Veil of Ignorance: Is There Anything Really Unjust About Gattacan Society?Chapter 7. Multiplicity: A Study of Cloning and Personal IdentityChapter 8. Is Ignorance Bliss? Star Trek: Nemesis, Cloning, and the Right to an Open FuturePart III: The Good LifeChapter 9. "Blessed Are the Forgetful": The Ethics of Memory Deletion in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindChapter 10. Hacking the Mind: Existential Enhancement in Ghost in the ShellChapter 11. Commodification, Exploitation, and the Market for Transplant Organs: A Discussion of Dirty Pretty ThingsChapter 12. "She's DNR!" "She's Research!": Conflicting Role-Related Obligations in WitPart IV: Aging and the Good Death Chapter 13. "He Just Got Old": Aging and Compassionate Care in DadChapter 14. False Images: Reframing the End-of-Life Portrayal of Disability in Million Dollar BabyChapter 15. "I Can't Be Like This, Frankie, Not After What I've Done": Million Dollar Baby and the Value of Human LivesChapter 16. Providing Critical Care for a Big Fish at the End of Life: How Sidney Lumet and Tim Burton Cane Help Us Avoid Becoming the Next Terri SchiavoChapter 17. The Thanatoria of Soylent Green: On Reconciling the Good Life with the Good Death Part V: The Role of Theory and Culture in BioethicsChapter 18. "If You Could Cure by Killing One Person, Wouldn't You Have To Do That?" Utilitarianism and Deontology in Extreme MeasuresChapter 19. Talk to Whom? Redefining Autonomy in Talk to HerChapter 20. Stars and Triangles: Controversial Bioethics in Contemporary Spanish FilmChapter 21. Ikiru and Net-Casting in Intercultural BioethicsIndex

A worthwhile addition to the core texts in the field of medical humanities. It is a valuable guide for teaching medical ethics and is worthy of a sequel. JAMA 2009 Should serve as a resource not only for teachers of bioethics courses but also for those engaged in understanding the relationship of the humanities to medicine and to bioethics... In addition, the book may prompt serious discussion of popular films that address complex topics and stories that have bioethical implications. -- Jeremy Sugarman Science 2009 Stimulating... each chapter has discussion questions that could be used equally well in the classroom or after watching a film at home with friends. -- James Paul Triple Helix 2009 The twenty-one essays, together with an excellent introduction by Shapshay, are a welcome addition to the bioethics literature, making up for some of the deficiencies of the usual case studies found in most bioethics text books. Most of the major distinctions, problems, and arguments which make up the field of bioethics are presented in uniformly well written essays typically focusing on a single film. Each essay is accompanied by study questions and excellent bibliographies. Metapsychology 2010