The Thai Situation in Bioethics

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The Thai Situation in Bioethics

• Soraj Hongladarom
• Department of Philosophy
• Chulalongkorn University

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Presented at the International Conference on
Dialogue and Promotion of Bioethics in Asia,
Manila Diamond Hotel, The Philippines, 14-16
October, 2002
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Awareness and Understanding

• Bioethics is a new topic for Thai people.
• The level of awareness and understanding
  naturally varies with the level of education,
  which means that it is rather unsatisfactory.

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Popular Perception

• Nonetheless, there have been many cases of
  popular perception of the issue.
• One way to gauge a peoples attitude toward
  social issue is through the arts.
• One example is the novel, Amata, by Wimon
  Sainimnuan.

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Most Prominent Issues and Controversies

• Amata deals with human cloning.
• It features the conflict between Buddhism and
  egoistic desires found in the attempt to clone
  oneself.
• Buddhism is aligned with the resistance of
  globalization, while cloning is with the other
  side.

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GMOs

• Another hard fought area concerns genetically
  modified organisms.
• Many NGOs are active in campaigning against the
  use of products made of GMOs.
• They charge the transnational companies of
  double standard.

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National Institutions

• Regulatory bodies
• Ministry of Agriculture
• National Research Council
• However, regulation is still rather weak.
• Promotional bodies
• National Science and Technology Development
  Agency (NSTDA)
• National Center for Genetic Engineering and
  Biotechnology (BIOTEC)

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Civic Groups

• BioThai
• Chief NGO campaigning against GMOs and other
  technologies perceived to be harmful.
• Thailand Environment Institute
• Chief NGO for the environment, mostly conducing
  research and studies.

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Research Institutions

• Universities
• Research on ethical and social implications of
  biotechnology is still at the beginning.
• Center for the Study of Science, Technology, and
  Society, Chulalongkorn University
• Other Research Institutes

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Current Status Research on Human Subject

• Various universities have ethical review boards.
• Funding agencies also have requirements meeting
  international standards.
• Popular perception is not a big issue.

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Organ Transplantation

• Apart from the guidelines set up by the IRBs,
  this is not a big issue in Thailand.
• People appears to be concerned more with the
  purpose for which organ transplantation is done
  rather than the rightness or wrongness of the act
  per se.

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Abortion

• This is a no no.
• Thai law allows abortion in only three cases
• rape
• fetus endangering mothers life
• fetus severely handicapped
• Popular perception is very much against it.
• But still there are hundreds of thousands of
  cases each year.

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Assisted Reproduction

• This is also not a big issue.
• What people are concerned is the cost of doing
  so, which allows only the rich to have it while
  the poor are excluded.

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Embryo Research

• Buddhism teaches that life begins with
  conception.
• Hence many are against the use of embryos for
  other purposes. (This is in accordance with the
  dictum Never use a human being as a means.)

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Euthanasia

• Buddhism teaches that deliberately taking life is
  wrongful.
• But it also recognizes that to be worth living is
  to be able to function independently and that
  death is a natural part of life which is not be
  avoided at all costs.

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HIV/AIDS

• Intensive campaigns have made Thailand one of the
  most advanced countries in terms of recognition
  of the dignity of AIDS victims as well as being
  open about the problems.
• AIDS patients are viewed more as victims rather
  than moral transgressors.

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Education in Bioethics

• Chulalongkorn University does not have a separate
  course of instruction in bioethics.
• Medical faculty has its own ?medical ethics?
  course, which focuses more on code of conduct.
• Philosophy department traditionally focuses on
  theory of ethics.
• But this is changing.

18
GMO Food

• This is a very big controversy, as I have said
  before.
• It seems to many that the issue does not concern
  scientific risks as much as business interests of
  the transnational corporations and the livelihood
  of Third world farmers.

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Genetic Research

• As with organ transplantation, this is not a big
  issue in Thailand.
• However, institutional review boards do have a
  guideline on this issue following internationally
  accepted standard.

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Buddhism

• As a Buddhist country, Thai people typically
  turns to Buddhism when faced with bioethical
  dilemmas.
• However, Buddhism does not have a specific set of
  answers one has to interpret the teaching in
  order to find solutions.
• Buddhism is more concerned with the motifs of
  doing the act rather than the act itself.