Bioethics in Portugal

A short introduction with limited insight

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.21860/j.16.1.2

Bioethics arrived in Portugal with a certain 'delay': the first center was established in 1988 in Coimbra (Centro de Estudos de Bioética), followed by the first chair in 1996 at the Medical Faculty of the University of Porto (Serviço de Bioética e Ética Médica), and in 1998, the Bioethics Center at the Medical Faculty of the University of Lisbon (Centro de Bioética da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa) was founded. Along with the Portuguese Society for Bioethics, established in 2003, these institutions focus exclusively on biomedical ethics. A broader perspective on bioethics, extending beyond the narrow Anglo-American focus on medical practice and biomedical research, is only fostered by the Institute for Bioethics of the Portuguese Catholic University.

Pioneers of Portuguese bioethics and co-founders of the first institutions include the pathologist Daniel dos Santos Pinto Serrão (1928–2017), pharmacologist Walter Friedrich Alfred Osswald (b. 1928), Jesuit molecular geneticist Luís Jorge Peixoto Archer (1926–2011), Jesuit philosopher Roque Cabral (b. 1927), pediatrician Jorge Biscaia (1928–2014), as well as the philosophical couple Renaud – Isabel Carmelo Rosa (b. 1942) and Michel (b. 1941).

Based on a review of literature, personal contacts, and field research findings, this paper provides a brief overview of the emergence and development of bioethics in Portugal: from institutional contributions to the work of individuals.