GLOBAL BIOETHICS: TRANSNATIONAL EXPERIENCES AND ISLAMIC BIOETHICS

In the 1970s “bioethics” emerged as a new interdisciplinary discourse on medicine, health care, and medical technologies, primarily in Western, developed countries. The main focus was on how individual patients could be empowered to cope with the challenges of science and technology. Since the 1990s, the main source of bioethical problems is the process of globalization, particularly neo‐liberal market ideology. Faced with new challenges such as poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, hunger, pandemics, and organ trafficking the bioethical discourse of empowering individuals is no longer sufficient. Global bioethics nowadays is concerned with applying and implementing a universal ethical framework. Islamic bioethics has contributed to creating such framework (exemplified in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights) while at the same time it is continuously articulating and interpreting this framework in specific settings and contexts.     

WHY RIGHTS? WHY ME?

That Jews are concerned about human rights is distinct from why Jews should be concerned about rights in the first place. This project analyzes the reasons Jews in the twentieth century put forward to convince co‐religionists to take rights seriously. Focusing on the content of these arguments facilitates dividing the proffered rationales into three broad categories—the temporal, the innate, and the philosophical. Analysis of each category reveals subdivisions, reflecting the many ways Jews try to persuade each other to care about human rights. This taxonomy, unlike others, highlights the different ways in which Jews conceptualize the burning ethical questions of our day: of how and why to be Jewish and modern. These rationales therefore are understood to function as moral reasons and, as such, can be assessed by their relative claims.     

Religion and Suicide

Religion impacts suicidality. One’s degree of religiosity can potentially serve as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. To accurately assess risk of suicide, it is imperative to understand the role of religion in suicidality. PsycINFO and MEDLINE databases were searched for published articles on religion and suicide between 1980 and 2008. Epidemiological data on suicidality across four religions, and the influence of religion on suicidality are presented. Practice guidelines are presented for incorporating religiosity into suicide risk assessment. Suicide rates and risk and protective factors for suicide vary across religions. It is essential to assess for degree of religious commitment and involvement to accurately identify suicide risk.     

Imagining Beyond “God's Warriors”

Abstract : This article provides a review of the CNN TV series, “God's Warriors,” by Christiane Amanpour.     

A RESPONSE TO DAVID HOLLENBACH AND SOHAIL H. HASHMI

Irene Oh affirms that religious freedom, faith, and reason, as David Hollenbach suggests, are subject matters that offer promising platforms for interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The need for cross‐cultural understanding is imperative especially given the current political climate, in which world leaders can easily exacerbate existing tensions through the misapplication of such terms. Sohail H. Hashmi addresses the need to discuss women's rights as part of a larger discussion on human rights in Islam. Oh concurs and notes that Sayyid Qutb's remarks on women in the United States serve as a starting point for clarifying women's agency in Islam.     

THE RIGHTS OF MUSLIM WOMEN: A Comment on Irene Oh's The Rights of God

This review of Irene Oh's The Rights of God focuses on women's rights in Islamic theory and practice. Oh suggests that religious establishments, and the texts they disseminate, often press believers to recognize and reject social problems, such as racial and gender discrimination. Islamic scholars and texts have played a more ambiguous role in efforts to recognize women's rights within Muslim states. Modernist intellectuals have used Islamic texts to support the advancement of women's rights, but members of the more conservative religious establishment have typically curbed or rejected these efforts. Muslim women themselves have established various responses to the question of Islam's compatibility with women's rights. While some embrace the value and compatibility of both, others reject the propriety of either Western conceptions of rights, or the Islamic tradition, as harmful for women. Muslim reformers and feminists have much to learn from comparative studies with other faith communities that have undergone similar struggles and transformations.     

PERSPECTIVES ON TORTURE: Reports from a Dialogue Including Christian,Judaic, Islamic,and Feminist Viewpoints

Torture continues to be a pressing political issue in North America, yet religious scholarly reflection on the ethics of torture remains all but sidelined in public discourse for a variety of complex reasons. These reasons are explored—and critiqued—in this collection of reflections by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and feminist religious ethicists. These scholars find that historical amnesia, forced if not twisted readings of classical texts and contemporary human rights instruments, and sociological factors are but a few of the factors challenging contemporary religious ethical discourse on torture.     

History, Human Rights, and Globalization

An illustrative comparison of human rights in 1948 and the contemporary period, attempting to gauge the impact of globalization on changes in the content of human rights (e.g., collective rights, women's rights, right to a healthy environment), major abusers and guarantors of human rights (e.g., state actors, transnational corporations, social movements), and alternative justifications of human rights (e.g., pragmatic agreement, moral intuitionism, overlapping consensus, cross‐cultural dialogue).     

Is Today's International Human Rights System a Global Governance Regime?

Enthusiasts of the idea of globalization often view international human rights institutions as part of an emerging global governance regime. They claim that these institutions illustrate how state sovereignty is being diminished. This paper looks at the international system for thepromotion and protection of human rights aspart of normative globalization. It arguesthat this system does not constitute a systemof global governance, although in some areas itcomes close.