Freddy Mortier

MA, PhD - Ethicist

Freddy Mortier is professor of ethics at Ghent University (Belgium). He is currently dean of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy. He teaches general philosophy and bioethics at the faculties of Psychology and Educational Studies, of Medicine and Health Sciences, and at his own faculty. He is a member of the (Belgian) National Advisory Committee for Bioethics and was chairman and/or secretary of several ad hoc working parties in that committee (advance directives, refusal of treatment by Jehova’s witnesses, surrogacy, post mortem reproduction). He is also a member of the Ethics Committee of the Ghent University Hospital and a member of the directing board of viWTA, the Flemish Parliamentary Institute for Technology Assessment. He studied at Ghent University and at the University of Paris I (Sorbonne) and got his PhD in philosophy at Ghent University with a dissertation on views of the human body in 18th century French paediatrics and obstetrics. His interests in bioethics are mainly directed at end-of-life research, including the ethics of euthanasia and other end-of-life decisions. Other fields of special interest are the rights of minors in health care and the relation between religion and health care.