27 Quotes by Arthur Caplan

With terminal illness, your fate is sealed. Morally, we're more comfortable with a situation where you don't cause death, but you hasten it. We think that's a bright line. Comparing the U.S. with Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal for patients suffering 'intolerable health problems.'

People ask, 'Is the science going to run ahead of the ethics?' I don't think that's always the problem. I think it's that the science runs ahead of the politics. Bioethics can alert people to something coming down the road, but it doesn't mean policy and politicians are going to pay attention. They tend to respond when there's an immediate crisis. The job of the ethicist, in some ways, is to warn or be prophetic. You can yell loudly, but you can't necessarily get everybody to leave the cinema, so to speak.

The time to talk about it [genetic engineering to improve a baby's genes] in schools and churches and magazines and debate societies is now. If you wait, five years from now the gene doctor will be hanging out the MAKE A SMARTER BABY sign down the street.

Should we give away refrigerators? Sure. Trips? Yeah. Fur coats? Who cares. But when we turn the quest for medical care into Queen for a Day, we have gone too far -- ethically. A show that gives out good medicine as a prize is immoral.

Basically, you shouldn't be sending out anything until you have that letter in hand.

I don't think it's unethical to have a wife volunteer to have a piece of her liver given to her child or her husband. I think it's even ethical to do for friends.

I think that may have damaged some of what he tried to accomplish.

Research in the past has wound up abusing, harming or hurting people. You want to stick to these regulations as carefully as possible, because they really make sure the welfare and interests of human subjects are protected.

There's really a very small amount of research going on now, but it is increasing and will continue to grow.