Abstract

BASTOS HURTADO, Ana Valentina. Distortion of the Principle of Autonomy to Support Ethically Illicit Acts. pers.bioét. [online]. 2022, vol.26, n.1, e2615.  Epub Sep 01, 2022. ISSN 0123-3122.  https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2022.26.1.5.

This essay aims to delve into fundamental concepts of ethics and morality to account for shortcomings in using the principle of autonomy to endorse ethically illicit acts such as abortion. The reflection originates from the author’s experience in the classroom, where she grasped a dialectical failure in teaching medical ethics: Many concepts were taught from a global ideology that results in a clinical practice based on individual convictions. These convictions are far from the ethical truth and what is philosophically demonstrable and arise from the “unethical” needs of today’s world. An approach is made to what autonomy is; the essay examines whether abortion can be qualified as a moral act based on the biological reality of what a human embryo is. In brief, abortion is a practice in which the principle of autonomy cannot prevail because it does not hold a purely moral action: It is impossible to affirm that abortion is ethically licit. Today’s society intends to provide legal grounds for illicit acts before reviewing the concepts that concern ethics and philosophy; part of the problem is that these contents are not adequately taught in the classroom.

Keywords : Abortion; autonomy; medical ethics; mammalian embryo; practice guideline.

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