ISLAMIC BIOETHICS:
Analysis of "Nonmaleficence" and "Beneficence" Principle in the Islamic Context
Oleh: Mohammad Syifa Amin Widigdo
ABSTRAK
Peranan Perspektif Islam pada bidang etika biomedis sangatlah sedikit. Namun demikian untuk mendiskusikannya ada 2 arus utama dalam Islam yang bisa memberikan kontribusi pengembangan bioetika, yakni teologi dan fiqh. Tulisan ini menjelaskan bahwa ada beberapa kesamaan umum antara prinsip-prinsip etika biomedis modern dan penalaran moral Islam hukum dan prinsip-prinsipnya. Keduanya memiliki keprihatinan mendalam dengan tiga isu-isu etis dalam bioetika; prinsip tidak menimbulkan kerugian, serta berbagai prinsip-prinsip moral lainnya. Tentu saja ada beberapa perbedaan pandangan. Mengenai perspektifnya, terutama didasarkan kepada falsafahnya. Namun perbedaan itu tidak mencegah kemungkinan pembicaraan lebih lanjut antara kedua tradisi. Di sisi satu sisi bioetika modern dapat memiliki perspektif kemungkinan mempromosikan dengan baik di luar pandangan dunia individualistis, dengan mengacu pada konsep maslahah. Di sisi lain, tradisi hukum-moral Islam mulai dari qiyas, istihsan, istislah, la darar, dan maslahah, bisa belajar dari bioetika sekuler cara menangani isu-isu kontemporer etika biomedi secara lebih canggih.
Kata Kunci: Etika Biomedis, Islam, Fiqh, kemaslahatan ummat.
Preface
A contribution of Islamic perspectives in the realm of bioethics is limited. This is mainly rendered by the dearth of serious engagement of contemporary scholars of Islam in this field. Although some scholars of Islam have already dealt with the issues of medical ethics for centuries,[1] they usually discussed them in the umbrella of Islamic law, which is in fact remote from contemporary bioethical discourses. The Islamic world therefore has limited access to modern bioethical debates. Moreover, Muslim physicians who are well trained in bioethical disciplines lack knowledge in Islamic studies. In turn, they are unable to introduce a kind of Islamic moral reasoning in the realm of bioethics.
However, there are Muslim physicians and a few scholars of Islam who attempt to engage in contemporary biomedical discourse. Among them are Fazlur Rahman, Vardit Rispler-Chaim, and Farhat Moazam. Fazlur Rahman elaborates the historical and philosophical aspects of Islamic medical tradition in his work, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition (1987). Meanwhile, Vardit Rispler-Chaim analyses a wide range of Islamic scholars' legal rulings on medical-controversial topics in his book, Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century (1993). Unfortunately, none of them is well informed or trained in the bioethical discipline; therefore, the dialogue between their works and Western bioethical discourses is absent.
Farhat Moazam, a Muslim scholar-physician and well trained in Western bioethics, actually has a good chance to initiate a mutual dialogue between Islamic scholarship and modern bioethics. Nevertheless, her work Bioethics and Organ Transplantation in a Muslim Society (2006) does not elaborate a delicate Islamic moral reasoning which actually corresponds with the principles of modern bioethics. As a result, the Western medical ethical tradition is still foreign to Islamic biomedical ethics while Islamic moral reasoning is also unknown in the realm of modern Western bioethics.
