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Copyright Patricia Piccinini
Protein Lattice
--subset Red Portrait, 1997
by Patricia Piccinini
Copyright Norman Daniels Faces of World Hunger
Photo by
Norman Daniels

Welcome

This is the Undergraduate Bioethics Program at the University of Virginia.

If you are a prospective student,
you can find information about the centerpiece of this program, the
Minor in Bioethics, under Academic Programs, or hear about the
experiences of one of our alumni.
If you are a current student, you can
find a quick list of Bioethics
courses on the Course Offerings
page.

News and Events

Frances McCorkle, a PPL major and history minor, was awarded First Prize for her essay "Liberal Answers to Callahan's Communitarianism" in the 2007 national undergraduate bioethics essay competition, sponsored by the Penn Bioethics Journal.

What is Bioethics?

Bioethics is both a field of intellectual inquiry and a professional practice that examines moral questions at the intersection of biology, medicine, law, public health, policy, and ethics - all broadly construed.
More. . .

Bioethics asks the hard questions:

  • Is it ethical to clone a human being?


  • Shall we legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide?

  • Should Terri Schiavo's feeding tube have been removed?


  • Is there a right to health care - or appropriate limits to demands for treatment?

  • How can we use human subjects in biomedical research without dehumanizing them?
Stem Cells
For questions or comments regarding this website, contact the webmaster.
Copyright 2005-2007
Undergraduate Program in Bioethics, University of Virginia
This website is supported by a generous gift from
Linda Obenauf Porterfield and H. William Porterfield, M.D. of Keswick, Virginia.
Last Updated 2/1/2008