Why the body matters: uses and abuses of the human body in modern medicine

The last fifty years have seen an upsurge in both the number of ethical dilemmas confronting the medical profession and an interest in ethics in both lay and professional circles. The first editor of this journal saw the subject as critical for medical practice, though he did not suppose that the perfect day of medical ethics would ever dawn. Taking the human body as a focus, this editorial surveys three currently controversial areas of medical ethics in Singapore: organ donation, cosmetic medicine and the separation of conjoined twins. As always in ethics, there are no simple answers, but we can get a clearer view of the values involved by recognising that we are embodied persons and so a due respect for the human body has to be a central feature of all medical care. The perfect day of medical ethics still has not dawned, but we have perhaps made some progress over the last half century.