I saw it on UW prereq site as "highly recommended but not necessary" and took that as "this class is 100% necessary" lol. Honestly if you have a tough schedule and want an easy A.. id take that class. It was very easy.. all you do are read a couple articles a week and write a response to all of them as well as memorize some vocab... Easy A. In my experience, i found the class as rather pointless and mostly just common sense. But, why risk not taking the class and looking back after a rejection email and thinking "damn.. if only i had taken bioethics." 😉