Expansion and politicization of the international bioethics concept

Abstract

Latin America and Brazil have particularly played an important role in the recent expansion and politicization of the international bioethics agenda, based on the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights of UNESCO. The present study is a brief history about this process, by relating contemporary ethical issues to the world current economic and sociopolitical crisis, that justify the need for concrete changes in the field of applied ethics. Analyzing certain situations in which bioethics is failing or not applied as it should, this paper shows the urgency of starting to analyze the moral conflicts found in our times in a different way. The purpose of the discussion is to review some conservative views of bioethics that avoid to uncover real problems related to social inequalities, by proposing new theoretical and methodological work references for the future. Its conclusion suggests some measures and changes, from epistemological and practical natures, necessary when facing bioethical issues from now on.