Interventional bioethics: epistemology for peripheral countries

Principlism, which originated in the United States based on four supposedly universal principles, brought international visibility to the field of bioethics over the final years of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, from 1990 onwards, criticism regarding the universal applicability of these principles emerged, especially concerning their limitations in dealing with collective macroproblems--social, sanitary and environmental--that are seen in poor developing countries every day. In this respect, the idea of Intervention Bioethics was presented at the University of Brasília, Brazil, in 1998, and was subsequently expanded to encompass other Latin American countries. From the outset, this epistemological proposal of third-world construction and perspective advocated politicisation of the international bioethics agenda, and this aim was achieved through the content of UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, which was adopted in 2005. Grounded in a utilitarian and consequentialistic approach, Intervention Bioethics gives priority, ahead of vulnerabilities relating to gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and similar considerations, to the fields of social and sanitary justice in order to defend the poorest and most disempowered populations in the asymmetrical contemporary world.