Although there have been concerns involving medical ethics since ancient times, bioethics is an invention of the late twentieth century. The first freestanding center devoted to bioethics was created in 1969. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, most major American institutions of higher learning and most American medical schools had centers, institutes, or programs devoted to the study of biomedical ethics. The bioethics center is no longer a uniquely American institution but an international phenomenon, with new centers continuing to be established all over the world.

Hastings Center

The first bioethics center resulted from the work of a newly minted Harvard Ph.D., the philosopher Daniel Callahan. In the late 1960s, while writing a book on abortion, Callahan found himself engaging with a complex interdisciplinary literature that took him outside the boundaries of traditional philosophical inquiry. As a result of the sharp disciplinary boundaries of that...