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Bioethics Research

INTRODUCTION

The study of bioethics covers many different topics, from medical professional-patient relations, to end-of-life issues, to issues relating to new medical technologies. This research guide is designed to highlight important resources, not limited to legal resources, for research in any bioethics topics. The guide will focus on United States resources.

If you have any questions or need additional research assistance, please feel free to stop by the Library's Reference Desk, send us an email (libref@law.georgetown.edu), or schedule an in-depth research consultation.

GETTING BACKGROUND INFORMATION

If you are not familiar with bioethics, the following resources will give you general background information and definitions of terms:

FINDING BOOKS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES

Using GULLiver, the Library's Catalog

You can search GULLiver by keyword of subject heading for books on this topic. Here are some subject headings you can use.

  • Bioethics -- United States
  • Medical laws and legislation -- Moral and ethical aspects

If you are interested in books on end-of-life issues in bioethics, here are some subject headings you can use.

  • Assisted suicide -- Law and legislation -- United States
  • Assisted suicide -- Moral and ethical aspects -- United States
  • Advance directives (Medical care) -- United States
  • Euthanasia -- Law and legislation -- United States
  • Euthanasia -- Moral and ethical aspects
  • Right to die -- Law and legislation -- United States

Bioethics Indexes

The Law Library subscribes to many interdisciplinary and social science databases, many of which are relevant to bioethics research. The following is a selective list highlighting the most useful databases and bibliographies accessible to our students and faculty members:

  • ETHX on the Web
    Created and maintained by the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL) at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, ETHX on the Web is a comprehensive bibliographic database of "journal articles, book chapters, bills, laws, court decisions, reports, books, audio-visuals, and news articles relating to bioethics and professional ethics." It contains over 180,000 citations. Most journal article records are from 1988 to the present, but approximately 12 per cent are prior to 1988. Books and audiovisuals acquired since 1975 are now in the database. Although most materials are in English, citations to materials in other languages, particularly Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, are present. The database is updated monthly. To do a precise search, you can search by NRCBL classification number. Almost every item cited in the database is available in NRCBL on main campus.
    The Law Library collects some materials on bioethics. Check GULLiver (The Law Library Catalog) and E-Journal Finder to determine if you can access the same materials in the Law Library.

  • Genetics and Ethics
    It is a subset of ETHX on the Web. It contains more than 22,000 citations on ethics and public policy issues in genetics.

  • PubMed
    This U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) database provides access to over 12 million MEDLINE citations back to the mid-1960s. These are mainly medical journal articles. Indexing of a selected list of bioethics journals, and supplemental data of uniquely-held, English-language materials are provided by the Bioethics Information Retrieval Project at the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL). The bioethics subset (including materials NOT submitted by the Bioethics Information Retrieval Project) can be created by clicking "Limits," and select Bioethics from the "Subsets" pull-down menu. The database is indexed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The PubMed site offers animated tutorials on how to search by MeSH. Check GULLiver (The Law Library Catalog) and E-Journal Finder to determine if you can access the materials in the Law Library.

  • MEDLINE (Ovid)
    A subscription database available through the Dahlgren Library web site provides some full-text articles (compared to PubMed's free but citation/abstract only database). Check GULLiver (The Law Library Catalog) and E-Journal Finder to determine if you can access the materials in the Law Library. (no off-campus access)

  • LOCATORplus
    It provides citation information of books, journal titles, reports and audiovisuals in the National Library of Medicine collections. LOCATORplus has about 18,000 records. In order to limit retrieval to Bioethics literature when searching on LOCATORplus, choose "Advanced Search" and add ethics KIE as a search term in keyword. 
    e.g. Search for: aging as any of these, Search in: Keyword Anywhere; And
    Search For: ethics KIE as any of these, Search in: Keyword Anywhere. 

So how are ETHX on the Web and Genetics and Ethics different from NLM's MEDLINE/PubMed and LOCATORplus? [see Chart]

Library Catalogues

In addition to these bioethics-specific resources, library catalogs are good resources to locate books on your topic.

  • GEORGE (Georgetown University's Online Catalog) [http://library.georgetown.edu/] provides information about the location of bioethics books housed at the NRCBL (books cannot be charged out) as well as Georgetown University system libraries. You can search books housed at the NRCBL by number from the NRCBL classification scheme or MeSH. GULC students have borrowing privileges at Georgetown University libraries.

  • GULLiver ( Georgetown University Law Library Online Catalog) [http://gull.georgetown.edu/] The Law Library has a good collection of bioethics materials. Check the catalog and E-Journal Finder to see if we have the books and journals you are looking for before visiting the NRCBL.

Legal Journal Indexes

Don't forget to check law journals which publish a fair number of "bioethics and the law" articles. Most students only search in the full-text journal database on Lexis or Westlaw. Just over half of all law journals published are available on the full-text journal database on Lexis and Westlaw. Moreover, volumes and issues published before the late 1980s are usually not available online. If you are looking for older articles and articles published in journals not covered by Lexis and Westlaw, search in law journal indexes:

When you search in law journal indexes, you will have to take another step to get the full-text. You can search either E-Journal Finder to see if any of our online subscription databases include the full-text of the journal articles you want, or GULLiver to see if we have the journal issue on the shelf.

Other Journal Indexes

Other journal index databases (include some full-text) that may be of use to you are

Bibliographies

You can also find references to journal articles and books in bibliographies:

  • LeRoy Walters, Bibliography of Bioethics (from v. 1, 1975) [ Z6675 .E8 W34]

  • NRCBL's Bibliographies
    This site contains dynamic bibliographies on major topics in genetics

  • GenBiblio (HumGen: International Database on the Legal, Social and Ethical Aspects of HUMan GENetics)
    It is a searchable database of reports and publications produced by bioethics-related agencies from around the world. Bibliographies can be built by selecting a research area, an ELSI (ethical, legal and social implication) and a specific group. Most resources are available free on the Internet.

To find other bibliographies on bioethics, search GULLiver (Library Catalogue) by subject: Medical ethics - bibliographies, or Bioethics - bibliographies.

FINDING NEWS ARTICLES / CURRENT AWARENESS

As bioethics is a fast-changing field, it is important to keep up-to-date. Westlaw and Lexis have full-text newspapers databases. The followings are free bioethics/health specific news sources.

FINDING LEGISLATION & CASES

Constitutional Provisions

The most relevant constitutional provisions are the equal protection and due process provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. You can find the text of the Fourteenth Amendment in any version of the United States Code, official or annotated, online or electronic.

Statutes and Legislative History

You can retrieve federal or state code sections easily if you have the citation of them from a secondary source or from a case. You can always search the code databases to find the sections, but there are two genetics-specific legislative databases that you should know of:

For federal legislative history, please refer to our Legislative History research guide. For state legislative history, please refer to our State Guides.

Cases

One way to obtain cases on a topic is to find relevant journal articles or books which usually cite leading cases. From there, you can Keycite (on Westlaw) or Shepardize (on Lexis) the cases to find other relevant cases and journal articles. ETHX on the Web which indexes leading bioethics cases is another good resource.

If you are interested in cases about end-of-life issues, this is a helpful website.

  • Health Care Ethics Cases (Ascension Health): The website maintains summaries of "significant legal and clinical cases that illustrate important issues in health care ethics." Each case summary also includes a link to "Key Ethical Principles" and "Issues & Concepts) that are especially relevant to that case. Ascension Health is a large Catholic and nonprofit health system.

 

USEFUL WEB SITES

Government Departments and Agencies

  • The President's Council on Bioethics [http://bioethics.gov]
    The purpose of this Council is to advice "the President on ethical issues related to advances in biomedical science and technology." Topics of concern include cloning, stem cells, beyond therapy (enhancement), patenting human life, biotechnology and public policy, sex selection, . . . The site provides meeting agenda, transcripts, reports and background materials.

  • Genome.gov (National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health) [http://www.genome.gov]
    Orginally set up to map the human genome, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (previously known as the National Center for Human Genome Research), is now one of 27 institutions and centers that make up the NIH. It applies genome technologies to the study of specific diseases. The web site provides information about NHGRI's research projects and its grant. The "Policy & Ethics" section includes a searchable "Legislative Database" of federal and state laws and policy related to genetics (stem cell research, cloning, employment/insurance discrimination, etc.).
  • The United States Department of Health and Human Services website can provide diverse and concise information on the improvement of the health, safety, and well being of Americans and the legal ramifications. [www.hhs.gov]

Other Content-Rich Web Sites

  • Bioethics Resources on the Web (National Institutes of Health) [http://www.nih.gov/sigs/bioethics/]
    The Web site includes resources that provide background information and various positions on issues in bioethics. These resources includes NIH bioethics-related resources; other federal resources, documents, reports and background info on specific bioethics topics.

  • NLM Gateway Search [http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd]
    "The NLM Gateway allows users to search in multiple retrieval systems at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM).  The current Gateway searches MEDLINE/PubMed, LOCATORplus, MEDLINEplus, Clinical Trials.gov, DIRLINE, Meeting Abstracts, and HSTProj."

  • Bioethics.net [http://www.bioethics.net]
    Maintained by the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania., the web site provides links to bioethics news for the week and the American Journal of Bioethics (full-text available only to subscribers). You can enter your email to receive weekly news updates. There are also links to debates, articles, reports on featured topics: cloning, genetics, and NBC's ER.

  • BioethicsWeb (United Kingdom) [http://bioethicsweb.ac.uk/]
    "BioethicsWeb offers free access to a searchable catalogue of Internet sites and resources covering biomedical ethics." Descriptions of each web site are available.

  • Center of Bioethics, University of Minnesota [http://www.bioethics.umn.edu/]
    • Resources Center Page [http://www.ahc.umn.edu/bioethics/resource/sumbov.html]
      The resources page provides links to the Center's Summaries & Overviews (topics included are: human stem cells, organ transplantation, distributing limited health care resources, resuscitation decisions, end of life care, research ethics, and new frontiers in genetic testing and screening); suggested readings and related sites on animal research, end of life care, organ transplants, reproductive technologies, research ethics, and stem cells.
    • Publications [http://www.ahc.umn.edu/bioethics/publications.html]
      This page links to the full text of three different publications by the Center: Bioethics Examiner (Spring 1997, vol. 1) Ethics Matters (May 1998-2002), Overviews.

  • Genethics.ca Topics [http://www.genethics.ca/topics.html]
    The web site provides list of agencies/organizations and literature on topics including genetic testing, patenting, DNA banking, gene therapy & engineering, stem cells, etc.

  • Ethics Updates [http://ethics.sandiego.edu/index.asp]
    Provides updates on current ethics literature, including reproductive technologies and ethics http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Applied/Bioethics/index.asp and euthanasia http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Applied/Euthanasia/index.html

  • International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) [http://www.isscr.org/]
    "[A]n independent, nonprofit organization formed in 2002 to foster the exchange of information on stem cell research." The web site provides general information about the society. It also includes the full text of the monthly "ISSCR Newsletter" (2002- ) which collects worldwide news on stem cell research as well as highlights of recent literature on the topic.

Directories

Academic Centers / Research Institutes

Professional Associations/Other Organizations

Revised 4/2008 (AT)

Page last saved 27-Apr-2009