ABSTRACT
One of the recent and interesting features of public discourse about bioethics in Britain and elsewhere is that a number of key religious virtues are gradually being used. This is a conscious borrowing from religious traditions made because it adds something significant to otherwise secular ethical discourse. Covenant and stewardship are interrelated within the Torah. God establishes a covenant first with Noah, then with Abraham and finally with Moses. The concepts of 'solidarity' and 'the common good' have been particularly developed within Catholic social ethics, although other religious traditions use them as well. Solidarity directs ethical attention to the most vulnerable within societies. In 2003 UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, took an unexpected step. It convened a group of Catholic and non-Catholic theologians, meeting at Windhoek in Namibia, to address the issue of how religious communities might be able to help reduce the spread of the HIV virus.
