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Life-and-death dilemmas. New medical technologies. Controversial treatments. In playing god? we hear from the patients whose lives were transformed—and sometimes saved—by medical innovations and the bioethicists who help guide complex decisions.
Ventilators can keep critically ill people alive, but when is it acceptable to turn the machines off? Organ transplants save lives, but when demand outpaces supply, how do we decide who gets them? Novel reproductive technologies can help people have babies in ways that are far beyond what nature allows. So, when should these “Brave New World” technologies be introduced, and who should control them?
playing god? is a production of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University, with generous support from The Greenwall Foundation. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
The Berman Institute has created a guide for each episode where you can learn more about the guests, the history, and the ethics issues at: bioethics.jhu.edu/playing-god
00:00:03
Speaker 1: You think you're doing something for the good of the patient, but with it comes all kinds of questions about what is the right thing to do. Legally, we know what we're supposed to do, but ethically it gets more complicated.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: Over the past few decades, we've adopted all kinds of new medical technologies ventilators, IVF, brain implants, and when bioethicists consider these innovations, they often return to the same questions, Just because we can do something, does it mean we should? And who gets to make those kinds of decisions? When does it seem like playing god.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: We're not the ethics gods, and we're not the ethics police, and I also like to say we're not the ethics bullies. We help people think through well given to equally ethically acceptable options, equally ethically problematic, which one can people live with?
00:01:01
Speaker 2: I'm Lauren A Roora Hutchinson. I'm the director of the Ideas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. I've spent years working on stories about the ways in which medicine and science show up in people's everyday lives, and now I'm doing a deep dive into stories about bioethics. I'm going behind the scenes to discover how some of the most significant medical innovations have impacted people's lives in ways that raise not just questions about medicine, but about morality.
00:01:33
Speaker 3: This entire bonus life that I have from this device is the only reason that I am still alive today. Their hearts were beating, their skin was warm, they had pulses, their chest was going up and down with breaths, all of those things a brain dead person can do.
00:01:52
Speaker 2: I got a little vile out and it's just like five millilters of liquid gold.
00:01:58
Speaker 3: You know, how do you put a price on that?
00:02:02
Speaker 2: I don't know. New medical technologies, whether they're for saving lives or creating babies, can generate a multitude of ethical questions.
00:02:12
Speaker 3: You sort of have to ask yourself, what would I do as a parent? Wouldn't I do anything I possibly could? How can you not try everything when you're trying to save the life of your child.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Join me this season as we explore some of the toughest questions in bioethics. You'll hear from patients, doctors, and bioethicists as they share stories of facing complex moral dilemmas.
00:02:34
Speaker 3: Some members of the family. We're very concerned, she was declared. Brain did to hastily. As we were leaving his room, his family grabbed us and said, you know you're not going anywhere. We demand that you reconsider.
00:02:48
Speaker 4: We all have benefited from scientific discovery on the backs of other people. This one was on my back, my husband's back, and my family's back.
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Pushkin Industries and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. This is playing God. The first episode drops on October tenth. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.