Public bioethics: a proposal

Abstract

Bioethics is at risk to become an academic discipline unconnected to yearns of citizenship, which is of particular concern in less developed regions lagging behind due to the impact of globalization, social and economic inequities, scarcity of resources, and lack of public policies to protect suitably people. This article proposes a public bioethics approach to public health problems, medical care, biomedical research, and environmental issues, and safekeeping private sphere by biopolitics colonization. This paper suggests the development of a public bioethics based on four pillars: comprehensive social participation, democratic deliberation, development of protective ethics aimed at empowering citizenship, and structured pragmatism proposal yielding structures and programs targeted to meet community’s needs, as well as the empowerment of excluded, channeling these actions through the establishment of strong national bioethics commissions.