Research

Through scholarly research, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre participated in the global conversation on bioethics. Our staff and visiting research fellows published frequently on ethical issues in healthcare and biomedical research, applying principles of natural law, virtue ethics, and Catholic moral teaching, and seeking to develop the implications of such teaching for emerging fields of practice.

The academic articles and essays in this section are all publicly available, either on the Centre’s website or through another online publication.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Or new to Catholic Bioethics? Try our Bioethics in Brief page.

All Research Papers

Our research papers offer in-depth, focused analysis of current and fast-moving issues to inform policy debate and public understanding. Covering topics such as COVID-19, and Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide (EAS), our papers bring together diverse voices from the Catholic community and wider society to examine challenges raised by these issues, and to explore potential solutions.

VIEW ALL RESEARCH PAPERS

Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide (EAS) Briefing Papers

The Anscombe Bioethics Centre has commissioned a series of Briefing Papers on euthanasia and assisted suicide, with the aim of informing Catholics and wider public debate in various jurisdictions concerning proposals for introducing assisted suicide into medical practice via legal frameworks. These papers clarify the issues at stake in the social, political, and medical discussion, examining the effects of legalising physician involvement in assisting a patient to end their own life, or directly causing their death.

See elsewhere on our website for material relating to euthanasia and assisted suicide, including a Guide to the latest evidence.

VIEW ALL EAS BRIEFING papers

COVID-19 Briefing Papers

The Anscombe Bioethics Centre has commissioned a series of COVID-19 Briefing Papers with the aim of bringing a diverse range of voices on board to address ethical issues of particular interest to the Catholic community, and the wider general public, in this fast-moving area.

These papers examine the challenges we have faced and the lessons to be learnt in order to improve the ongoing response to coronavirus, and they also identify key questions for a post-pandemic future.

Other COVID-19 material including a December 2020 article on vaccines can be found on our Resources page, while a video discussion of COVID-19 vaccines can be found here. For a list of COVID-19 vaccine candidates and information on their connection or lack of connection to abortion, see the Charlotte Lozier Institute chart.

VIEW ALL COVID-19 Briefing papers

Library

Our specialist bioethics reference library contains over 7,000 titles, which makes it the largest such collection in the UK. Currently in storage, we are seeking support for a permanent home which will make this rich resource once again accessible to students, researchers, and the general public.

Sincerest Thanks for Your Support

Staff are grateful to all those who sustained the Centre in the past by their prayers and the generous financial support from trusts, organisations, communities and especially from individual donors, including the core funding that came through the Day for Life fund and so from the generosity of many thousands of parishioners. We would finally like to acknowledge the support the Centre has received from the Catholic community in Ireland, especially during the pandemic when second collections were not possible.

We would like to emphasise that, though the Centre is now closed, these donations have not been wasted but have helped educate and support generations of conscientious healthcare professionals, clerics, and lay people over almost 50 years. This support has also helped prevent repeated attempts to legalise euthanasia or assisted suicide in Britain and Ireland from 1993 till the end of the Centre’s work on 31 July 2025.