Brave New Bioethics - Softcover

Gregory E. Pence is a medical ethicist with twenty years of experience reviewing significant cases in bioethics, and is professor in the School of Medicine and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. He is the author of Who's Afraid of Human Cloning? (1998) and Designer Food (2001).

Greg Pence has done a masterful job of taking very complex bioethical issues and making them comprehensible to the average thoughtful person. His arguments are crystal clear, and he's not afraid to take on sacred cows. This will be a very valuable collection for the non-specialist who wants to understand the perplexing problems of modern bioethics. (Bonnie Steinbock, chair, philosophy department, University at Albany/SUNY)

Armed with an admirably clear style, a sharp eye for what's important, low tolerance for hype, demagoguery, or sloppiness with the facts, Pence provokes the reader to think clearly about the major bioethical issues of our time. Along the way, he reveals a refreshingly self-critical attitude, illustrating time and again that, in bioethics, experience is a hard teacher. He gives the test first and the lesson later. Experience has also made Pence a good teacher. He benefits us all by giving us genuinely worthwhile things to think about. (Lance Stell, Charles Dana Professor of Philosophy and Medicine, Davidson College)

Gregory Pence's lively and very readable essays are sure to provoke discussion and debate. From cloning and genetics to living wills and the value we place on human life, Pence never flinches from raising the tough issues, and letting his readers know what he thinks. (Peter Singer, DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University)

Combining clarity and remarkable thoughtfulness, Greg Pence has written a timely and accessible guide to some of the most vexing problems in bioethics. (Kenneth Kipnis, University of Hawaii; visiting senior scholar, American Medical Association)

Those interested in bioethics will find Pence's view an interesting contrast. (Publishers Weekly)

Listed in Ameican Scientist's Scientists' Bookshelf (American Scientist)

These short pieces range widely over topics including reproductive and therapeutic cloning, assisted reproduction, organ donation, assisted suicide, genetically modified foods, and public health care costs. (Publishers Weekly)