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Bioetika ve veřejném diskurzu / Bioethic in the public discourse

From time to time there comes to a stirring up of a society-wide discussion on bioethical issues ? abortion, prenatal diagnosis, assisted reproduction and euthanasia in the Czech Republic. This social discussion is largely influenced by media which present to us interesting news or a story, but it is necessary to realize that these topics have a much broader scope and potential impacts than it is served up to us by media. A wide range of debaters as well as professional and lay public regularly express to bioethical issues relating to the beginning and the end of life. For a fruitful discussion it is necessary to clearly define and specify concepts, because often there is a misguided discussion without any expected results. In the past there was no need to deal with such issues very much, because the order was in hands of Nature. Not completely healthy individuals failed to conceive a child, an unwanted foetus was carried to term and its sex was a surprise for parents and finally, people died naturally according to their age or after a lost match with a disease. For many people Nature, for others some Higher Order. Of course, an incredible scientific development enabled such miracles of which we would have not dreamt hundred years ago yet. We have gained many rights, freedom and democracy as well as a wide-ranging choice. Today we can decide whether to become pregnant and in the same way we can decide that we get rid of the full womb from different reasons. Using diagnostic methods we can determine what a child we carry bellow the heart, but with the help of the same technique it can become uncomfortable for us. We can be treated and live even a century and in many places we can lawfully decide that our life has no meaning and we can finish it. The aim of the diploma thesis is to map readers´ awareness of bioethical issues using a secondary analysis of printed documents from three chosen Czech dailies in 2000 ? 2010 years. To track what triggered a debate among the readers, who discussed and what stance adopted the readers on the issue. The secondary objective was also the mapping of all proponents´ and opponents´ arguments of selected topics and comparing the results with the professional literature. The research shows that the public debate was always sparked by an event presented by the media, to which subsequently responded readers from all areas. According to the research results the public awareness of bioethical issues has been formed mostly by experts directly involved in bioethical dilemmas or carrying out such a profession, in which bioethics greatly interferes. Readers of diverse composition participated in the discussion and the most represented group was a group of experts and a group of lay debaters.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:137818
Date January 2012
CreatorsŠIMKOVÁ, Petra
Source SetsCzech ETDs
LanguageCzech
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess

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