Advances in medicine are often thought of as benefiting everyone, and there are plenty of examples where they do. However, some have caused problems – specifically concerning ethics. For instance, animal experimentation can cause huge amounts of suffering, whether testing drugs on animals or to experiment on humans. Similarly, the creation of embryos in laboratories without consent can lead to children who would otherwise not exist. In addition to these problems, medical research may actually make things worse – for example, an increase in vaccinations may create resistance to future vaccines. Finally, some people believe that advances in medicine should be restricted to those who need them most – although this is controversial.
Almost every area of science requires decisions that have an ethical dimension; genetic modification, cloning, energy production, and especially weapon research are areas that must be done carefully, ethically, and with due consideration for the consequences of those actions. In addition, there is also the issue of expense; money spent on projects like space exploration or particle accelerators is difficult enough to justify economically, but can those projects be morally justified when so many people around the globe live in extreme poverty?
