Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics EJAIB Vol 18(4) July 2008 ISSN 1173-2571 Copyright ©2008 Eubios Ethics Institute (All rights reserved, for commercial reproductions). Eubios Ethics Institute World Wide Web: www.eubios.info/index.htm Official Journal of the Asian Bioethics Association (ABA) Contents page Editorial: 97 Biocosmology – Rehabilitating Aristotle’s Realistic Organicism and Recommencing Russian Universal Cosmism: Response To Arthur Saniotis 98 - Konstantin S. Khroutski Darwin – Wallace Saga: Ethics in Research 105 - K. K. Verma Bioethical concerns are global, bioethics is Western 106 - Subrata Chattopadhyay and Raymond De Vries How can we make the best use of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights? 110 - Miki Fukuyama and Atsushi Asai The Roman Catholic Church on organ transplantation 112 - Paolo Becchi On Cultural Narratives, Fertility Medicine and Women’s Agency 118 - Frida Simonstein Ninth Asian Bioethics Conference Draft Program 118 Send papers to the editor in electronic form if possible. Please use reference style of citations by author’s name in the article and an alphabetical list at the end of the article, do not use automatic footnotes or endnotes. Papers are peer reviewed. The papers do not represent the views of Eubios Ethics Institute, or the editor or editorial board, which upholds the principles of freedom of expression. Editorial address: Prof. Darryl Macer, RUSHSAP, UNESCO Bangkok, 920 Sukhumvit Rd, Prakanong, Bangkok 10110, THAILAND Fax: Int+66-2-664-3772 Email: d.macer@unesco.org Deadline for the September 2008 issue is 27 August, 2008. Editorial: Culture and Bioethics This issue of EJAIB includes 6 papers which are linked around the theme of culture and bioethics, providing illustration of the diversity of views of what bioethics is, and what principles are important in bioethical discourse. The first article is a substantive and detailed response to an earlier article published in EJAIB. No doubt in a future issue we can see the conversation continue, and we welcome others to the discourse over biocosmology. It is illustrative of philosophical diversity. The second item is a reminder of the debates that occurred 150 years ago as the theory of evolution was published in 1858, and the understanding between Darwin and Wallace that emerged when they had both been developing the same idea. The message of cooperation is important today in academic endeavours to develop any field. The next two articles discuss the universality of bioethics, and how individuals and communities are both important. There is a different emphasis in each of the articles, with the first calling upon Western bioethics to realize that there are other approaches to bioethics, and the second looking at the implications of the Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights in application. The authors calls for ethics education at all levels. The article by Becchi reveals how the discussion of brain death and organ transplantation that featured so highly in the bioethics agendas of the past 40 years in Japan, Korea, and some other Asian cultures, is also a matter of debate in papal policy. The final paper, by Simonstein, reveals how in an educated community like Israel a pronatalistic policy can influence the moral choices that people make. We may not be so free as we like to think in determining informed choices. It reveals anthropological diversity in the way bioethics and lifestyle choices linked to provision of advanced science and medicine are adopted. At the end is the draft program of the Ninth Asian Bioethics Conference, to be held, 3-7 November in Indonesia. It promises to be a significant meeting, with all themes being discussed and with many original presentations on research in Asian bioethics. We are still open to more papers, and there will be associated meetings on ethics of energy technologies, among other events. -Darryl Macer