Bioethics and Women in Latin America: A Biographical and Genealogical Essay

Abstract

Bioethics consolidated in Brazil at the end of the 1990s. A similar phenomenon occurred in other Latin American countries, especially in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, where the introduction of bioethics to academics was a notable occurrence (Diniz et al. 1999, pp. 244-248; Organización Panamericana de la Salud 2006; United Nations and Scientific and Cultural Organization 2006; Velasco-Suárez 2001). In this consolidation process, women assumed different roles: sometimes as academic protagonists and sometimes as interlocutors in the public sphere. This dual insertion is the trademark of women in Latin American bioethics and is part of the biography of this essay, a biographical and genealogical narrative of Latin American and especially Brazilian bioethics. The common thread of this narrative is our experience in this dual role as academic protagonists and as bioethical political speakers. Other women’s reports about this process of the academic consolidation of bioethics in Latin America support the narrative; however, the authors assume total responsibility for the interpretation of the facts.1