[Reflexions on some dilemmas in bioethics for the millennium]

With the end of the millennium, several proposals or propositions have been made about politics, culture, and economics for the world society. Science cannot be isolated from this well-recognized globalization process. Information through the Internet allows the spread of scientific data and knowledge among professional and no professional users to be exchanged and non shared, with the possibility of storing that information in a very fast manner. However, there are important differences in the availability and quality the information, especially in developing countries. On the other hand, it is clear that advances in technology in recent years are higher and faster than development in humanistic and philosophical areas. This situation points to the necessity of using some basic bioethical principles to deal with very important dilemmas such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, and new bioethical dilemmas such as technified death, restriction of economic resources in health care institutions, cloning and genetic manipulation, among others.