- The Inge Lotz Foundation has donated R1m to the Unit for Bioethics at Stellenbosch University.
- The donation "liberates the unit to explore areas that we otherwise would not have been able to do because of financial constraints", its head said.
- Lotz was murdered in 2005. Her case remains unsolved.
Stellenbosch University's Unit for Bioethics can pursue a number of new research projects thanks to a R1 million donation from the Inge Lotz Foundation, the head of the unit said on Wednesday.
The foundation was established by Professor Jan Lotz after his daughter was found murdered in her Welgevonden flat in Stellenbosch in 2005.
He said the donation was made after a recent conversation with the director of the Centre for Applied Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Professor Anton van Niekerk.
Van Niekerk specialises in bioethics, the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of the human sciences, and Lotz is a radiologist and an emeritus professor in the Division of Radiodiagnosis at the university's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Van Niekerk said:
He said Lotz had indicated that the foundation would be keen to "become more involved in the work of the unit", but said the R1 million donation left him "completely surprised".
"This donation will free us up to pursue a number of new research projects, one of which is a study on human enhancement that I am working on with some of my colleagues and postgraduate students, as well as other ventures. One of these ventures involves looking into the moral issues emerging from the government's proposed National Health Insurance scheme, which will bring with it a conundrum of moral and ethical issues," Van Niekerk said in a statement.
"In addition, the unit hopes to also use part of the funding for postgraduate bursaries."
Bioethics is one of the oldest and one of the most recently emerged academic disciplines of western society, Van Niekerk explained.
"It is the discipline that led the Greek medical philosopher Hippocrates to formulate the Hippocratic Oath, an oath [in amended form] taken by medical practitioners up to this day to show their commitment to the ethical care of all patients. However, in spite of this oath … ethics had for many centuries not been taken very seriously and had only been taught as an add-on to the curriculum of medical students.
"But as our knowledge has grown, medical personnel have started to wield enormous power over sickness, health, and even death. And history has shown us what this kind of power can lead to."
The donation "liberates the unit to explore areas that we otherwise would not have been able to do because of financial constraints".
Advances in technology and medicine in the course of the 20th century brought with them many ethical questions and played a big role in medical treatment, even in how death was defined, Van Niekerk said.
"One of the main factors that changed how we thought about death, was when Professor Chris Barnard transplanted a heart. We had to ask ourselves: Can we be sure that the patient whose heart is removed for a transplant is really dead? As a result, the criteria for establishing death were changed. Every new development in technology requires us to ask new questions around the morals and ethics that inform medical decision-making."
Van Niekerk said he was "excited about the possibilities that [the donation] has opened up for us in bioethics".
Lotz's murder remains unsolved. Her then boyfriend, Fred van der Vyver, was acquitted in the Western Cape High Court in 2007.
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