The bioethical committee as an institute for social control of technological innovations in medicine: law analysis

Abstract

The article provides a general description and classification of bioethical committees from the point of view of the subject and goals of their activities, the nature of their authority, legal status, organizational and legal foundations of their activity. The bioethical committee is interpreted as a special institutional form of organizing scientific (interdisciplinary) and public understanding of moral and legal problems in the field of medicine, generated by technological innovations. In the system of social control the bioethical committee is a social institution that is either integrated into the system of public administration, or creates its own channels of influence on the position of the professional medical community and public opinion. From this point of view the article analyzes foreign and Russian history of bioethics committees institutionalization. The author interprets bioethics as a field of scientific and practical activity, the social purpose of which is to translate actual bioethical dilemmas, unsolvable on the basis of abstract principles, into the communicative space, where a consensus can be based on common moral intuitions. The article substantiates the thesis that the main intention of bioethics and bioethics committees, as an expression of its practical function, is to find a legal solution to problems. The author made proposals for improving the legal support for the creation and operation of bioethical committees in Russia.