The Historical Setting of Latin American Bioethics

Abstract

Bioethics has been and continues to be an American movement. It would be difficult to successfully transfer its propositions, unchanged, to other countries, even to those with very similar economic, social, and cultural conditions, such as European countries in general and those of Latin or Mediterranean Europe in particular (Drane 1988; Gracia 1993, pp. 97-107). The differences are compounded when a culture does not share Western roots, such as in Japan (Bai et al. 1987, pp. 18-20), China (Qiu 1993, pp. 108-125), or Nigeria (Gbadegesin 1993, pp. 257-262). One’s inability to universally apply the American principles to different cultures highlights the importance of trans-cultural studies and the history of peoples that need to be appreciated. Outside of cultural and historical context the ethics of a people or an epoch and their bioethics cannot be understood. In this paper, I propose to study the historical setting of Latin American bioethics. This is necessary because the culture of these peoples stems not only from the Anglo-Saxon but also from a Latin and Mediterranean tradition, from which it has derived highly specific characteristics. In what follows, I will offer a brief review of the history of these peoples and then define the ethical features of the main periods of that history.