@article{1d88d77f14ec42e59e3e33375ba9f442,
title = "Australian commissions and committees on issues in bioethics",
abstract = "We examine the role of Australian state and federal committees and law reform commissions in bioethics. Most have been concerned with in vitro fertilization and embryo research. We find deficiencies in the standards of reasoning about the underlying ethical issues raised by these techniques. We suggest stronger representation of those with a background in ethics.",
keywords = "Commissions, Committees, Embryo, Ethics, In vitro fertilization, Law reform",
author = "Pascal Kasimba and Peter Singer",
note = "Funding Information: To understand Australian developments, it is necessary to appreciate that Australia has a federal system of government in which the powers to legislate about medical research and practice are largely retained by the states. The federal government, however, funds a substantial proportion of the medical research conducted in Australia, with a significant part of this channelled through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC). In a manner similar to that of the National Institute of Health in the United States, the NH&MRC is able to control ethical aspects of the research it funds by requiring grantees to comply with its guidelines. These guidelines have been developed by the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the NH&MRC. In practice, even medical and biological research not funded by NH&MRC is conducted within these guidelines, since the major research institutions in Australia have agreed with NH&MRC to apply the same standards to all research proposals. The weakness in this system of regulation, however, is that it is powerless to stop a private institution which receives no NH&MRC funds from ignoring the guidelines. States may, however, enact stricter standards as they see fit.",
year = "1989",
month = aug,
doi = "10.1093/jmp/14.4.403",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "14",
pages = "403--424",
journal = "Journal of Medicine and Philosophy",
issn = "0360-5310",
publisher = "Oxford University Press",
number = "4",
}