Mormonism, Medicine, and Bioethics

by Courtney S. Campbell

Overview

Mormonism, Medicine, and Bioethics provides the first comprehensive treatment of principles and positions on questions of bioethics encountered by members, professionals, and ecclesiastical leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon). The book addresses three fundamental features of a coherent religious bioethics: precepts for practical decision-making, general ethical principles, and core religious convictions that give a distinctive motivation for personal, communal, and professional integrity. LDS ethical principles of love, hospitality to strangers, covenantal solidarity, justice, and moral agency are integrated with central topics in bioethics including abortion, genetic testing and enhancements, in vitro fertilization, medical assisted death, medicinal marijuana, neonatal intensive care, organ donation, preventive health care, universal access to care, and vaccinations. This book uses first-person experiences to give voice to the lived moral realities of Latter-day Saints as they experience difficult and wrenching ethical questions and choices as persons, family members, community members, professionals, and as citizens within the context of their distinctive faith convictions. It situates these communal conversations within the broader discourse of bioethics and thereby supports both bioethics and religious literacy. Mormonism, Medicine, and Bioethics also examines circumstances in which The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints engages in a moral witness of its values on matters of public policy, such as legalization of physician-assisted death, of elective abortion, and of medicinal marijuana. The book concludes with a distinctive normative argument on why LDS ethical principles and practices require support of universal access to an adequate level of health care for all persons. It provides an appendix of significant LDS ecclesiastical policies on medical, health, and moral issues, making it a definitive educational and reference compilation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197538548
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/03/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	854 KB

About the Author

Courtney S. Campbell is Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University where he directs the Religious Studies Program and the Program in Medical Humanities.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction: Moral Realities of Latter-day Saint Ethics Chapter 1. Faith, Medicine, and Healing Chapter 2. Creating Life: New Conceptions Chapter 3. The Wisdom of Prevention Chapter 4. Back to the Future: Genes, Disease, and Future Generations Chapter 5. Gifts of Life: Organ and Tissue Donation Chapter 6. Born Dying Chapter 7. Dying Well: Life Endings and Medical Assisted Death Chapter 8. Public Bioethics: Abortion and Medical Marijuana Epilogue. An LDS Case for Universal Health Care Appendix A. LDS Ecclesiastical Statements on Biomedical Ethics Issues Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"The publication is both interesting for scholars dealing with the LDS church, its history, and teachings and for all those trying to gain insight into recent developments in medicine and bioethics and their relation to religion." — Franz Winter, Religious Studies Review

"This book can show Mormons the permitted spaces of medicine and what medicine should profoundly signify, informing both medical practice and patient experience." — P. Rodriguez del Pozo, CHOICE

"The publication is both interesting for scholars dealing with the LDS church, its history, and teachings and for all those trying to gain insight into recent developments in medicine and bioethics and their relation to religion." — Franz Winter, Religious Studies Review Vol 48.4

"Campbell's book is a welcome publication...It is therefore helpful to have updated material and to have an ethically, rather than a historically, focused approach." — Mormon Studies Review

From the Publisher