Bioethics in Eastern Europe

Panorama of Views, Phenomena and Concepts

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.21860/j.10.2.2

Bioethics was unknown in Eastern Europe until the 1990s. After the fall of communism, however, these countries rapidly opened and embraced Western trends and models of bioethics, accepting the directives of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University – without even knowing the proximity of the original concept of bio-ethics in Europe. This paper analyses the bioethical status of Eastern European countries by looking at the contours of the neglected European intellectual heritage. By using a systematic literature review and field research, the foundations of historical dynamics of the development of bioethics in Eastern European countries have been established at the intersection of Potter’s and Jahr’s bioethics. Without knowing the work of Fritz Jahr, his basic ideas have been followed.