Work

Medical ethics of spaceflight should be based on ethical theories and include the non-ethical context

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The article by Siddharth Rajput and colleagues discussing the proposal of medical ethics principles for future long-term spaceflight takes as its starting point the famous, in a sense classic for modern bioethics, proposal of four bioethical principles by Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress 1 . These principles are autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. The authors view medical ethics as a kind of risk-benefit analysis. The principles are meant to be a guide to help make the most beneficial decision in a given situation. Rajput and co-authors stress that space ethics “must implement an unbiased decision-making toolkit focused on the crew as a single entity.” I will suggest reasons to doubt their proposal and show that extending it to future long-duration missions may have troubling ethical implications.

Source: npj Microgravity

DOI: 10.1038/s41526-025-00530-8

Author: Konrad Szocik

Institution: University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow

Language: English

Topic: Ethics and bioethics in healthcare

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,690