Bioethics and Ethics Applied to Animals

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Foreword

Research Structures

Energy, Environment, and Biodiversity

Humanities and Ethics

Culture and Education

Society and Development

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Biology and Health

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Humans and non-human animals under discussion

PUCRS has been a Brazilian reference in the debate and production of bioethics content since the 1980s. To broaden discussions and knowledge related to this topic, the Research Group on Bioethics and Ethics Applied to Animals has existed since 2006, coordinated by Professor Anamaria Gonçalves dos Santos Feijó.

Topics related to human beings and non-human animals are currently under consideration. In the first segment, a focus is on fetal malformation associated with the interruption of pregnancy. By decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the termination of pregnancies of anencephalic fetuses without being considered a crime of abortion was approved in Brazil in 2012. However, the group raised the following question: would the decision of the STF include the interruption of pregnancy due to other malformations? Another study covers orthothanasia and the living will, the latter still nonexistent in Brazil, but already practiced, for example, in the USA. The topic of biobanks and their legal and ethical requirements is also a focus of discussion and production by the group. Articles addressing these topics were presented at the 7th Luso-Brazilian Meeting of Bioethics in Lisbon (Portugal) in July of 2012.

Also in July of that year, through the Cambridge Declaration, neuroscientists in England have formally asserted that mammals, birds, and cephalopods (octopi) possess consciousness. These comprise another target of the discussions fostered by the group at PUCRS. The texts intend to reflect the novelty among Brazilian scientists and to seek concrete arguments in this regard.

These and other studies are performed in a space at the Laboratory for Bioethics and Ethics Applied to Animals, where the Group is located. The two structures are linked to the Bioethics Institute of the University and have the support of the Schools of Bioscience, Dentistry, Law, Medicine, and the Graduate Program in Philosophy, maintaining an interdisciplinary identity for the team of four faculty researchers, six associated investigators, students, and undergraduate fellows.