Moving bioethics beyond ethics: a new role for the state?:Towards a social and political approach to the public governance of the new biomedical technologies

Abstract

Aceptado como ponencia a la conferencia del ECPR en Helsinki (7-12 mayo 2007). Abril 2007. ; Focusing on the issue of genetic diagnostic testing and drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with genetists, epidemiologists and clinicians in Spain, this paper highlights the limits of an individualistic approach to biomedicine, embedded in a larger process of biomedicalization of the health care system and geneticization of the medical research. In contrast to the current approaches on biomedical regulation, generally based either on bioethical considerations or on technical expertise, the present work suggests the necessity of integrating the decision making process with new approaches studying the social and political consequences of the massive implementation of biomedical technologies. Through the restoration of the centrality of the political discourse, new and effective systems of governance may allow the fertile participation of all the actors involved in the production, promotion, regulation and consumption of the new biotechnological treatments whilst, at the same time, reconcile high participation with decisional efficacy.