Baruch A. Brody (21 April 1943 – 30 May 2018) was an American
bioethicist
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...
. He was the Leon Jaworski Professor of biomedical ethics and former Director of the Center for Ethics, Medicine and Public Issues at The
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...
and Andrew Mellow professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
.
Education and career
Brody received his B.A. from
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
in 1962 and his Ph.D. from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1967. He joined the
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
philosophy department in 1975, and retired in 2018.
He was elected to the
National Academy of Medicine in 2001 and was a fellow of the
Hastings Center
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...
.
Philosophical work
Brody was among the first scholars in the field of
applied ethics
Applied ethics refers to the practical aspect of moral considerations. It is ethics with respect to real-world actions and their moral considerations in the areas of private and public life, the professions, health, technology, law, and leadersh ...
to write about abortion in the era following
Roe v. Wade
''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and st ...
, including four articles in four different journals, culminating in his 1975 book ''Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View''.
He has been noted for his contributions to
Jewish ethics
Jewish ethics is the ethics of the Jewish religion or the Jewish people. A type of normative ethics, Jewish ethics may involve issues in Jewish law as well as non-legal issues, and may involve the convergence of Judaism and the Western philosoph ...
, as one of a number of "professional bioethicists with medical training" who uses "Judaic resources and reasoning to illustrate and augment their arguments."
Selected publications
* ''Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View''. (MIT Press, 1975).
* ''Identity and Essence'' (Princeton, 1980).
* ''Life and Death Decision Making'' (Oxford University Press, 1987).
* ''Ethical Issues in Drug Testing Approval and Pricing'' (Oxford University Press, 1994)
* ''The Ethics of Biomedical Research'' (Oxford University Press, 1998)
* ''Taking Issue'' (Georgetown, 2005)
References
1943 births
2018 deaths
Bioethicists
Brooklyn College alumni
Princeton University alumni
Rice University faculty
Baylor University faculty
Hastings Center Fellows
American people of Jewish descent
Jewish ethicists
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
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