Acerca de la emergencia y consolidación de la bioética como disciplina desde una perspectiva sociológica

Abstract

Resumen Este artículo trata sobre la emergencia y la consolidación de la bioética como disciplina desde una perspectiva sociológica. A partir del análisis de textos publicados en el contexto norteamericano se reconstruyen distintos relatos de narrativas sobre el origen de la disciplina. La referencia al contexto norteamericano radica en que la mayoría de las publicaciones indican a esa geografía como el lugar del surgimiento de la disciplina. Esta reconstrucción ayuda por un lado, a comprender qué es lo que se entiende y cuáles son las prácticas y áreas de conocimiento de la bioética y por el otro a identificar diversas conceptualizaciones y opiniones de los expertos sobre cuál debe ser el campo de estudios de la bioética que llevan a distintas aplicaciones de la disciplina en la práctica en las ciencias de la salud. Esto se torna relevante para las discusiones epistemológicas sobre la disciplina y para la consolidación de un campo de la sociología de la bioética en el contexto iberoamericano.

Mapping Bioethics in Latin America: History, Theoretical Models, and Scientific Output

“…To date, no evaluation and review of the intellectual output of Latin American researchers in the field of bioethics has been done, although some descriptive works have analysed the history of bioethics in the context of the Latin American continent and in specific countries (Lolas Stepke 2005;Pessini, Sobral, and Goncalves 2007;Pessini, Barchifontaine, and Lolas Stepke 2010;Álvarez-Díaz 2012;Hodelín Tablada 2011;Garrafa 2000Garrafa , 2006Irrazábal 2015).…”

Debates parlamentarios sobre la muerte digna en Argentina: los derechos de los pacientes terminales en la agenda legislativa, 1996-2012

“…Within the framework of the emergence of bioethics as a discipline (Rothman, 1991;Irrazábal, 2015) and critiques of the medicalization of death and dying, such as the hospice movement (Clark, Seymour, 1999;Castra, 2003; Menezes, 2004; Floriani, Schraam, 2010), end-of-life care soon came to be seen as a "public problem." Decisions about when to prolong the life of a patient by artificial means and the criteria for withholding or withdrawing lifesupport measures had not been scrutinized until the mid-1970s, but they began to be discussed by different actors when doctors' authority to make these decisions came into question as a result of some controversial cases (Rothman, 1991).…”

“…Technical innovations such as pulmonary ventilation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques and artificial nutrition, which led in the 1950s and 1960s to the possibility of offering intensive therapy, substantially altered end-of-life management in medical settings (Lock, 2002; Kind, 2009). The ability to keep vital organs functioning by technical means, which resulted in liminal states between life and death (Kaufman, 2000), gave a new status to medical decisionmaking in end-of-life care, and opened debates about the potential of these technologies and the limits to their use.Within the framework of the emergence of bioethics as a discipline (Rothman, 1991;Irrazábal, 2015) and critiques of the medicalization of death and dying, such as the hospice movement (Clark, Seymour, 1999;Castra, 2003; Menezes, 2004; Floriani, Schraam, 2010), end-of-life care soon came to be seen as a "public problem." Decisions about when to prolong the life of a patient by artificial means and the criteria for withholding or withdrawing lifesupport measures had not been scrutinized until the mid-1970s, but they began to be discussed by different actors when doctors' authority to make these decisions came into question as a result of some controversial cases (Rothman, 1991).…”