Paul Komesaroff

This chapter talks about Australian bioethics and highlights the argument that bioethics have never been above the political struggle for power and influence in the public marketplace of ideas. It describes the Australasian Bioethics Association, as it purposely moves bioethics discourse beyond philosophical or theological inquiry. The chapter concludes with an analysis of bioethics, as it functions as a political field through which the Christian right competes against secular science, bioethics, and liberal ideology in order to amplify religious doctrines, traditional family values and ethics, and social order in Australian society and politics.

The Ebola virus disease epidemic in Western Africa has, in recent months, aroused growing alarm in Western countries. Attention has been drawn to the threat posed to the inhabitants of the region by what has undoubtedly become a major health emergency. As the death toll has mounted, increasingly strident calls for action have been voiced by nongovernmental organizations and international agencies active in the area, such as Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organization and, more recently, even by the U.S. president.Critics of the Western response have claimed that the newfound concern about EVD, which has been present in Africa for nearly 40 years, reflects a longstanding disregard of the needs of people living in the region. They point out that the difficulties in controlling the spread of the disease are in large part due to the lack of effective health infrastructure, which in turn reflects global disparities in wealth and opportunity. Despite the lack of m ..