Consolidated bioethics: historical approach at 40 years of its birth

Abstract

In this paper we attempt a historical approach on some aspects related to the emergence, evolution and consolidation of Bioethics as a discipline. We focus on analyzing the number of publications containing the word Bioethics from 1971 to 2011. We analyze briefly the dominant theme in every year in that period and also the registering indexed journals containing the term Bioethics in English or Spanish. We found that the number of publications with the term bioethics was 1 in 1971 rising to 2997 in 2011. There were 31 journals that met the search requirement, since 1976, of which 23 are still running. Regarding the prevailing theme, beyond the usual topics such as abortion, euthanasia, transplants, etc., highlights the contributions around the education of professionals in the field, the creation and maintenance of bioethic committees, the linking between Bioethics and politics and the media, and the emergence of subspecialties such as Neurobioethics in recent years.