Conference on Religious Values and Legal Dilemmas in Bioethics: introduction.

• Author: Raskin, Joyce M.

INTRODUCTION

The Articles and Essays contained in this issue of the Fordham Urban Law Journal offer a unique perspective on some of the most exciting and challenging developments in science and technology. They deal with matters of life and death. For those of us who would--who will--shape the dialogue of how the future landscape might, or should, look regarding how we procreate, what risks we are willing to take in the search for new treatments and cures for diseases that are not only life threatening, but also "quality of life" threatening, and how we choose to die, it behooves us to learn as much as we can about the panoply of options, and how the decisions we make will affect our lives and our society. The decisions to be made are deeply personal and involve not only what is possible, but also how those decisions will impact on what we believe, and who we are ethically and morally, as well as who should have input, or control, over our decision-making abilities.

With the advent of ever-new technologies in the area of reproductive possibilities, we are continuously confronted with new issues to assess and resolve. When does life begin? To what lengths are we willing to go to create life? How do we value life? As those involved with medical science seek to find treatments, and hopefully cures, for some of the most debilitating diseases, we must make a meaningful assessment of the benefits and costs of those treatments and cures, not only in terms of resource allocation, but also in terms of our understanding of who we are as humans and the benefits and costs to our spiritual and religious understandings. As we approach death, we are confronted with questions of what life is, what the quality of life is, when life is over, and the level of autonomy we wish to exercise regarding the answers to those questions. Finally, as attorneys, what do we bring to these discussions in terms of individual representation, scholarly debate, and lawmaking? Of particular concern is the role religion, faith, and spirituality, both of the client and the attorney, play in representing clients, and what are the appropriate conversations regarding them.

The conference underlying the Articles and Essays that follow was a natural outgrowth of a prior conference held at Fordham on religious lawyering entitled, The Relevance of Religion to a Lawyer's Work: An Interfaith Conference. (1) The purpose of the conference was not to make resolutions, but to provide...