Bioethics in Latin-America: Some Challenging Questions for the Present and Future

拉丁美洲的醫學倫理：現在與未來所面臨的挑戰

Leo Pessini

《台灣醫學人文學刊》 10卷1期 (2009/06) Pp. 91-101

https://doi.org/10.30097/FJMH.200906.0006

並列摘要

This article aims to present some challenging questions that bioethics has to face in Latin America Region nowadays. In it's beginning in USA (1970) bioethics dealt basically with new ethical dilemmas created by the fantastic progress of science and technology that generated new discoveries related with human life. We have new concept of death, the beginning of the era of transplantation (kidney, heart and liver), and scandals with research with human beings, that fostered the emergency of the principlism paradigm. Bioethics in Latina America, in its beginning is a transplantation of the bioethics of principles of United States. It started to built its own identity, only in the mid 90`, when began to take into account and address some key ethical issues related with the socio-political and Cultural reality of Latin America. We identified five points: 1) Broadening the ethical reflection from the ”micro” to the ”macro” level; 2) Taking into account the cultural differences between Anglo-Saxon and Latin cultures; 3) The challenge to develop a horizon of meaning for bioethics; 4) Going beyond principles; 5) Consider justice and equity in the health care area as one of it's key ethical referentials; and finally 6) to establish a respectful dialogue between bioethics and religious values.