“God gave me this opportunity to begin the Farsi New Year by speaking about ethics. Bioethics is a part of ethics,” commenced Khatami in the opening ceremony. Khatami continued his speech illustrating with various verses of poetry the importance of adhering to ethics, moral values and one’s religion.

Khatami emphasized that the “world is seriously threatened by the production and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction are manufactured by the order of politicians and military authorities, they are unfortunately developed and tested in scientists’ laboratories.”

Elaborating further on the subject, the Iranian President continued by saying, “In the name of ethics and in the name of respecting the lives of people all over the world, we have to oppose categorically, with no exception and no precondition, the manufacturing and proliferation of WMDs at all times and in all places.”

The President elaborated on other issues such as the relation of ethics, philosophy and science to each other. He also mentioned that “science and ethics share mutual collaboration; scientific advancements pose new ethical questions.”

The remaining sessions of the day commenced after the opening ceremony ended with heated enthusiasm. The session that was received with much interest from the Congress attendees asked the ultimate question, “Can there be a Universal Code of Bioethics?” Answering that question was Dr. Kerry Bowman from the University of Toronto. Dr. Bowman has been working with many diverse communities, and had just recently been doing work in the Bakka tribal society in Central Africa. In his introduction he discussed how the roots of bioethics are almost exclusively “Western in origin,” which he believes emerged due to medical abuse and resource allocation problems. An example such as the very Western question of “who can get the limited amount of kidneys we have?” However, “a significant concern,” according to Bowman, “is bioethics may blunt deeper social critiques of modern Western medicine by focusing on what ought to be done in challenging ethical dilemmas, rather than looking at the broader systemic factors and injustices which create such problems.”

Bowman argued that having a universal code of bioethics may be rather difficult due to the vast cultural differences between some societies. An example of this would be the West’s value of moral agency and individual autonomy which he believes to have stemmed from the European Enlightenment. Whereas in many “non-Western philosophical traditions” such as Taoism and Confucianism, their "moral perspective and direction [are] illuminated by interdependence rather than independence,” he explained. Some societies such as the Bakka of Central Africa have virtually no concept of ‘self’ and much of their decision-making depends on the opinions of the elders in their communities which they look upon with respect.

This difference is significant especially in cases of end-of-life decisions, where in the West individual autonomy is prevalent. According to Bowman, Western society has been leaning towards a more secular approach to bioethics which is understandable since the secular approach “seeks to apply a unitary approach to the demands of complex and diverse Western cultures,” he said. Some would say, explained Dr. Bowman, that secularism is an alternative to “religious perspectives and is better able to serve pluralistic, spiritual and social context to achieve an institutionally sanctioned method of resolving conflict.” However, Dr. Bowman argued that, “our effort to examine issues from a non-spiritual or non-religious perspective makes our approach limited, incomplete, and devoid of meaning as well as difficult to understand for many non-Western observers.”

Unfortunately, explained Bowman, the greatest problem is in the profound inequality and distribution of health care. However, bioethics is devoted more to the developed countries complex situations instead of the many inequalities societies face. According to Bowman, 87 percent of the US$ 2 trillion spent on health care globally, is spent on only 16% of the world’s population. As Bowman put it, “These inequalities exist because in most of the developing world the health care needs of individuals and societies are driven by poverty and privation. Questions of autonomy are barely relevant in the face of macro questions of distributive justice and access to preventative and curative interventions. These staggering realities have virtually nothing to do with the genesis of Western bioethics which arose and was first applied to tackle cases of access to dialysis, transplants and assisted reproduction. Can bioethics shift its focus to this extent?”

In response to a question from IslamOnline.net about the Terry Schiavo case, Dr. Bowman said it was a complex situation that has been highly politicized. His main comment was that these cases should be resolved outside of the courts and a mutual agreement reached. Bowman was reluctant to support a certain side in this case due to the complexity of the situation. However, he noted that in the United States, the next of kin is the husband and this should be respected.