Religion, Bioethics And The Human Subject Experimentation

Human subject experimentation is one of the ways by which scientists and medical practitioners seek advancement for their profession in relation to preventive and curative medicine. Though many have argued in support of human subject experimentation to the effect that it increases the number of lives saved, as well as improves the quality of lives, however, it is dehumanizing for it exploits human subjects and degrades their worth, dignity, rights, autonomy and personhood. How then can one balance or justify exposing human subjects to risk for the sake of the advancement of science? Can the desire for knowledge ever justify the inhumane or unethical treatment in experiments on human beings? Hence, this paper seeks to examine the various ethical problems associated with human subject experimentation. It shall also explore the theological and religious responses to the use of human subjects for experimentation and argue that theological and religious responses have humanizing trends for human subject experiment.