Dear friends and
colleges:
The Group of Bioethics from the School of Sciences (University
of the Republic, Montevideo,
Uruguay)
have the pleasure to welcome you to our web page. We are a group of scientist
currently doing research in different biological disciplines. We are university
professors challenged by the ethical consequences of our scientific work,
as well as the work of our colleges, will have for our national community,
as well as for our community as a part of the only one human family. We
believe that this intersection of ethics and biological sciences, among
science and human values, this that we call Bioethics, is a matter of the
highest importance for the future of life and for our lives.
We began in 1999, thanks to the impulse of Prof. Rodrigo Arocena, from
the Unit of Science and Development of our School, with the first course
of Introduction to Bioethics and Ethics of the Researcher, that from that
date on it is thought every year as an optional semester course. You can
see the programs of each year in this web page. The field of bioethics
is very extended and diverse today, and for that reason, according
to our professions, it is not possible for us to cover it entirely, not
in its extension, not in our capacities. This is why our course takes only
the topics related to the ethical dilemmas in the biological sciences and
the ethics of the investigator. Our articles relate also to this matters.
It is with great pleasure that we can point the impact Bioethics have had
in our students. Being an optional course for all undergraduate degrees
of our School, the course of Introduction to Bioethics and Ethics of the
Researcher have a mean of 85 students per year. It is with more enthusiasm
that we can say that we have good ethical reflections from our students,
over a wide ethical topics that the advance of the biological sciences
had brought. To recognize the effort of our students is that we would like
to share with you the monographs they wrote, that can be consulted in the
appropriate section of this web page (unfortunately only available in Spanish
at this moment).
We hope that this enterprise will permit us to share reflections and to
contribute to this novel and young discipline. Each society, each human
community will have to choose what to take and what not to take from science
and technology. We, scientists, are not the ones that have to take the
choices on its name, but we have the duty to participate and to inform,
with conscience and with science. We hope the contents of this web page
will contribute to that purpose.
Sincerely,
Dr. Juan Cristina
