Introduction
"Bioethics was born out of the ashes of the Holocaust."
-Dr. Arthur Caplan, Director of the Medical Ethics Division of NYU Langone Medical Center
Setting Standards to Protect Rights and Ensure Responsibilities
As a result of The Nuremberg Doctors' Trials standards for bioethics and human rights were established for the scientific and medical communities. These standards became the basis of our modern day bioethics in the medical world and basic human rights. The Nuremberg doctors' trial prosecuted and convicted Nazi physicians who participated in war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II. This topic represents the History Day theme of “rights and responsibilities” because during the trial, the prosecutors explain how the Nazi physicians and scientists neglected their responsibilities to their patients as they performed horrible experiments on prisoners in the concentration camps. These patients, in return, lost their rights to consent to experimentation or treatment. Out of these trials came the Nuremberg Codes, which are the rights of the patients in medical experiments and the responsibilities the doctors have to inform and protect the patients.
Prosecutors and Judges
"The trial and judgment as a whole are...signal contribution both to international law and to medical jurisprudence." -Telford Taylor, Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg Doctors Trial