Ethics Principles and Guidelines

Ethics Principles and Guidelines Name Institution Ethics Principles and Guidelines Humanity has always been under threat since the ancient times; if it is not from natural calamities then it is from self-inflicted issues. Natural calamities threatening lives may include but not limited to drought, storms, climatic changes, earthquakes, or mudslides. For human-caused threats, this section can go on and on but the most common ones include war and quest for knowledge. Quest for knowledge may be divided into several sections. Nevertheless, what is intriguing in this subject is that in the quest to understand the human body and functions some subject have had horrible experiences with some losing their lives. Before 1906 and before the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, there had been no regulation nor policies taking care of the human subjects used in research or quest for more knowledge in human anatomy (Department of Health, 2014). The ethical aspect of using humans in studies was considered as immoral and religious groups were against it but no regulations were passed or developed prior to 1906. However, some commissions, individuals, activities, and government elected members started pushing for sanity in the medical world, which prompted, to development of bodies that were to take care of the ethics aspect of the human subject in research. A key turning event occurred in 1946, 9 December when the military tribunal took action against Germans physicians for crimes against humanity. They were charged with conducting experiments without their consent on hundreds of prisoners in concentration camps. Most of these prisoners used as subjects either died or suffered long life disorders such as being crippled. This led to a number advancement in the medical sector to check and control these experiments, among the improvements, included the development of Nuremberg Code, Thalidomide, Declaration of Helsinki, National Research Act of 1974 and the Belmont Report (Department of Health, 2014). Significance of Autonomy Protection of human subject is one of the ethical aspects in the biomedical sectors. This is, however, a sensitive and challenging issue since there are words that have confusing meanings, for example, the difference between practices and research this is mostly because these two occur together. However, besides confusion, there have been basic ethical values for evaluating human actions of fellow humans in the biomedical sector. The main principles include respect of persons, which is inclined to individual's autonomy, beneficence that involves respecting individuals decision and ensuring their wellbeing and justice that involves the question who is equal and who is unequal? (Department of Health, 2014) There are two ethical convictions when respect for persons is concerned one involves the person being preserved as autonomous agents and the individual with diminishing autonomy being entitled to protection. There are two notions to autonomy and that is treating individuals as autonomous agents and protecting those with diminishing autonomy. A person is said to be autonomous if they are in a position to deliberate their personal goals and to respect this autonomy of an individual one out to give consideration of the considered pa...