Juridical Principles of Prohibition and Criminalization in the Field of Bioethics

Bioethics is a new branch of applied normative ethics in which essential strategies to confronting challenges originated because of emergence modern biological technologies are explained. Thus, applying issues such as human cloning, embryonic stem cells, monstrous creatures, genetic manipulations, and biomedical tests on human subjects with unpredictable consequences has been the theme of bioethical studies in the recent three decades so that, through studies made about ethical theories and principles governing them as well as comparison made between them, ought’s and ought not’s in this field may be organized. Study of the reason behind religious prohibition of some bioethical issues (following ethical requirements provided to limit and prohibit employing them) has opened a new chapter in juridical studies concerning newly originated issues. Searching in traditional sources of Imami jurisprudence guarantees dynamism and its correspondence to the requirements of time. This search has given the author some reasons for prohibition and criminalization of bioethical issues. An expanded interpretation of the rule of “no harm” and prohibition of harming one’s own self or others as well as expedient approach to the social dimensions and consequences of applying these technologies and avoiding disordering the system and necessity of protecting it, have made religious prohibition of them in the field of bioethics possible and paved the way for criminalization in this field in the form of religious sanctions for things which are religiously sinful.