This is a list of the concurrent presentations that have been accepted and the author registered. This list will be updated weekly. Please note that this is a placeholder only - confirmed day/time is still to be allocated and will be available on this programme in October.
Taking bioethics to the funeral directors?
Death features strongly in bioethics in the context of debates about why, when and how healthcare should prevent or assist dying and about the conditions in which dead bodies can be used for organ transplantation, medical research and education. Less attention has been paid to questions of what is ethically required or warranted in the more commonplace situations in which the bodies of people who have died must somehow be managed in the time between their death and the disposal of their body by burial, cremation or otherwise. Nurses, mortuary staff and funeral directors are all expected to treat the dead with respect and dignity, but why, and what can this mean in practice? This presentation will consider some of the practical challenges and philosophical puzzles of death care work that bioethics could usefully engage with.