Bioethics in Portugal: 1991–1993

Abstract

In this update to the essay in Volume Two of the Bioethics Yearbook, we will focus more on the growing awareness of the relevance of bioethics to public health, medical practice, and biological research than on particular developments in legislation or in case law or court judgments. This growing awareness is demonstrated by wide-ranging public discussion of issues such as abortion, new reproductive technologies, euthanasia, and AIDS, and of the ethical challenges these matters pose. Discussion is held in journals, on television (the medium of greatest audience and impact in Portugal), and at symposia, workshops, and conferences organized by universities, bioethical centers, church institutions, professional bodies of health workers, and medical scientific societies. Indeed, there is no important initiative in the biomedical field that fails to include discussion of the relevant ethical questions. This positive evolution may be linked to the 1990 creation of the National Council of Ethics for the Life Sciences; that event gave official recognition to the important role of bioethics on the social and political scene. Moreover, Portugal is represented by experts on the bioethics committees of the European Community (in Brussels) and the Council of Europe (in Strasbourg) as well as on the recently founded council of bioethics of UNESCO (in Paris). Such participation also contributes to the appreciation and awareness of bioethical issues in public life.