ABSTRACT
As in other Latin American countries, bioethics flourished in Argentina during the 1980s when the academic discipline and public discourse were institutionalized throughout the region. With the generalization of new medical technology (e.g., critical care, organ transplantation, assisted reproduction) and the restoration of democracy, public and academic interest in bioethical issues expanded in the 1980s. On the one hand, increasing litigation in medical cases, malpractice claims, and an emphasis on patients’ rights imitates American bioethics. On the other hand, there has been an academic rehabilitation of practical moral and political philosophy applied to medicine, following the model of moral pluralism and consensus formation, which has been key to the multi-disciplinary exploration of bioethics in the United States (Mainetti, 1995).
