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Guest Editorial

Nigel M de S Cameron, Founding Editor

When this journal first saw the light of day in the early 1980s the very notion of 'bioethics' was still new, especially in Europe. An American invention, even today it faces deep-seated professionalism as the primary European context for its issues (so, for example, two sponsors of this journal, The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy and The Lindeboom Instituut, are members of the deliberately named 'European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics'). The idea that the fundamental questions raised in medicine and the biosciences could be torn from their Judeo-Christian and Hippocratic cultural-professional contexts and incubated in vitro, as it were, on the lab bench of arid contemporary philosophy, sits uneasily with the strong public European traditions of professionalism and the Christian faith.

Ethics and Medicine originated in that milieu, and its peculiar contribution as a truly international journal (with its principal readership divided almost equally between the US, the UK, and continental Europe) lies precisely here: in calling contemporary bioethics/medical ethics back to its sources in the humane medical traditions of our civilisation. That is done partly because only here do we find coherence with that civilisation and its distinctive beliefs and moral vision. The idea that 'values' can be deciphered from the tabula rasa of human autonomy is a claim deserving of the myth of the emperorıs new clothes. Moreover, this approach derives specifically from the deep Judeo-Christian roots of our culture, which blend with the best of the pagan culture of late antique Greece and Rome to form the amalgam of 'the west', with its unique (even if not uniquely good) role in the cultural leadership of our increasingly global community. Christians, Jews, and Muslims can rally around the Hippocratic flag, and be joined by Buddhists, Sikhs, and those of many other religious traditions, as well as humane secularists who hold dear the common morality of our culture. For many of us, Judeo-Christian moral leadership still offers the best hope of cultural renewal in the disenchanted and increasingly degraded societies that are the hapless legatees of Christendom.

This new-look Ethics and Medicine will therefore continue to offer vigorous contributions to this central debate, and to do so from the perspective of the best in our medical-cultural heritage. As the lead essay in this issue makes very clear, the stakes are being raised as every day passes. While the Œoldı issues of abortion and euthanasia continue to press us with their life-or-death choices (underlined by the recent Dutch decision, noted elsewhere in this issue, finally to sanction medical killing after years of indecision and doublespeak, and the UK government's enthusiasm to extend the abuse of the human embryo), the 'new' issues that encompass nanotechnology and genetics and much else transcend these common- or garden-threats to human dignity with exotic new possibilities.

This journal has from its beginnings sought to set every question in the context of the biggest picture-the significance of medicine and its technological options for human being, the dignity of those who have been held within the western tradition to be made in the image of God himself.

As we move with this issue into the third millennium anno domini, the task we face is huge: to harness these exponential capacities of human power to the good of the species. It is our confident belief that within the framework of Christian Hippocratism lies humanityıs best hope for professional medicine and the development of the biosciences in the interests of Homo sapiens.- E&M

Nigel M de S Cameron chairs the Ethics and Medicine Trust and founded this journal in 1983. In addition to his work in ethics and public policy, as principal of Strategic Futures Group, LLC, he consults with non-profit organizations and colleges in strategic planning. He is Executive Chairman of the Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy (London), and Dean of the Wilberforce Forum (founded by Charles W. Colson, Reston, Virginia).

This article appeared in Volume 17:1 of Ethics & Medicine.