John Caldwell Fletcher papers

John Caldwell Fletcher was born in Bryan, Texas, and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Both of his parents were deaf and his father was an Episcopal priest who did missionary and counseling work for the deaf. Fletcher graduated from Sewanee: the University of the South with a degree in English literature(1953). He married Adele Davis Woodall in Guntersville, Alabama on September 4, 1954 and they moved to Heidelberg, Germany for two years while Fletcher studied Dietrich Bonhoffer as a Fulbright Scholar. After their return to the United States, Fletcher was ordained as an Episcopal priest.

In the following years, he earned a Master's of Divinity from the Virginia Theological Seminary and a doctorate in Christian ethics from Union Theological Seminary in New York (1969. He served as Rector of Robert E. Lee Memorial Church (1960-1964), Chaplain of Washington & Lee University and associate professor of church and society at Virginia Theological Seminary(1966-1970). In 1970, he began Interfaith Metropolitan Theological Education Inc., dedicated to providing apprenticeships and reflection on ministry to a diverse student body. He later became the first formal chief of the bioethics program at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (1977-1987) and the Kornfeld Professor of Biomedical Ethics/founding Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA (1987-1998).

Fletcher wrote two books, "Coping With Genetic Disorders: a Guide for Clergy and Parents" (1982) and "Ethics and Human Genetics: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" (1989), edited with sociologist Dorothy C. Wertz. The latter was the result of a groundbreaking, survey-based project, carried out in the late 1980s, that is still cited in 2017. He also authored dozens of papers and presented frequently on topics such as research on human subjects, genetic testing, assisted suicide and ethics consultation in health care organizations. Fletcher participated in the Virginia Bioethics Network, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee and development of the Master’s Program in Clinical Ethics at the University of Virginia. He was President of the Board of Directors of the Society for Bioethics Consultation (1986-1988), Founding Fellow of the Hastings Center and a Senior Research Fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (1975-1987). In 2001, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities awarded Dr. Fletcher its lifetime achievement award

Bernstein, Adam, “John C. Fletcher; Biomedical Ethicist, Former Episcopal Priest,” Washington Post Wednesday, June 2, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8178-2004Jun1.html

Daily Progress, “Adele Fletcher.” July 26, 2014. http://www.dailyprogress.com/obituaries/fletcher-adele/article_ac420792-1bc7-5928-85cc-57a56aab496a.html