La Construcción de la Bioética (review)
- La Construcción de la Bioética
The discussion of bioethical issues is not new in Latin America. Historically, it has been significantly and consistently shaped by religious considerations. This is not to say that discussions always invoke religious texts or appeal to religious doctrine when examining ethical issues. However, underlying the public debate on topics such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted reproduction, and cloning are theistic ideas about the value of human life and the importance of the natural order; and many public policies, laws, and guidelines regarding a number of practices often are justified by beliefs grounded on theistic considerations.
It is against this background that the Colegio de Bioética (CB) was founded in 2002 in Mexico. This is an interdisciplinary academic and service-oriented organization that offers seminars, organizes conferences and lectures, and has engaged in a dialogue with different legislative and academic institutions. Since its inception, the CB has been active in promoting a public, secular, and moral debate on the issues raised by technological change and controversial bioethical practices.
La Construcción de la Bioética is the first in a series of textbooks to emerge from the work of the members of the CB. Edited by physicians, Ruy Perez Tamayo and Rubén Lisker, and researcher, Ricardo Tapia, this collection introduces the major concerns of bioethics to readers with no previous experience in the discipline and reflects a commitment to developing a bioethical discourse that is sensitive to multiculturalism and religious diversity. [End Page 182]
Two chapters are devoted to an examination of the field itself. In the first, Perez Tamayo and the philosopher Paulina Rivero Weber discuss the relationship between ethics and bioethics, examine the nature of bioethics, and offer an account of the historical development of the discipline. To some extent, the chapter by Ingrid Brena complements this one. Brena focuses on the relationship between bioethics and the law, in general, and in particular, in Mexico. The other eleven essays lead the reader into different areas of bioethics such as abortion, eugenics and human genetics, reproductive technologies and human embryonic research, organ transplantation, end of life decision-making, biomedical research and technology, informed consent and ethics committees, and neuroethics.
A common strategy adopted by the authors is to start with a detailed and careful description of the practice in question and to give a general outline of the main ethical issues and current positions while providing the grounds for the author's own view of the relevant issues. Examples of this approach are found in the chapters on cloning and stem cells by Ricardo Tapia, Ruben Lisker, and Ruy Perez Tamayo; organ transplantation by Patricio Santillán Doherty; euthanasia and assisted suicide by Asuncion Alvarez del Rio and Arnoldo Kraus; neuroethics by Lisker; and eugenics by Lisker and Amendares. The authors generally use a principle-oriented approach to examine the issues.
The articles in general offer a glimpse into the social and political conditions in Mexico and provide information on relevant legislation, from the Mexican law on human organ transplantation, discussed by Santillán-Doherty in his useful chapter; to the legal status of informed consent and the Ley General de Salud, in the article on informed consent by Laura Vargas Parada, Ana Flisser, and Simón Kawa; and the piece on medical research by Antonio R. Cabral and Perez Tamayo.
The significance of the Mexican context becomes particularly evident in the discussion of genetic counseling, prenatal diagnosis, and abortion. In their chapter, Patricia Grether and Salvador Armendares wonder about the availability of diagnostic techniques in a society where abortion is illegal in most cases. Does it make sense, they ask, to search for serious diseases in a fetus, with all that entails, when in fact abortion is not an option? And in their article on abortion, Gregorio Perez Palacios, Raymundo Canales de la Fuente, and Raquel Galvez Garza show how, in practice, in Mexico the well-being of embryos takes priority over the life and well-being of women and...
