Tobias Eichinger

Despite of its great popularity and medial familiarity, its role as one of the most leading art forms of our time, its function as an instrument of collective self-understanding and socio-cultural reflection, filmic approaches to contemporary bioethical issues hardly get attention in the academic discourse so far. That is not only the case for the multilayered representation of fiction films, but also for the narrative potential of documentaries. Documentary narrative forms could open important levels of meaning in ethical cases by providing insight into the individual circumstances and perspectives of the persons affected. Hardly any other medium is as suitable as documentary film to make the reality of the personal dimension of medical decisions experienced beyond a theoretical argumentation. After explaining this on a theoretical level, the discursive added value of integrating reality through documentary films in the bioethical debate is illustrated by two examples taking up the ethical controversial issue of surrogacy motherhood.

Tobias Eichinger is a senior research assistant at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics and the History of Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Dr. Eichinger has degrees in philosophy and film studies from the University of Freiburg and the Free University of Berlin. His research interests focus on philosophical and ethical questions of modern biomedicine and life sciences and on issues of the relationship of film and medicine. In his PhD thesis he analysed philosophical and ethical issues of wish-fulfillung medicine and enhancement.