In this issue of Medicine and Ethics, various topics are addressed: research ethics, old age and stoicism, abortion, bio-law, medical and existential aspects of the bio-right, and the meaning of the disease.

The first article, «Bioethical reflections on old age from the stoicism of Seneca», by José Enrique Gómez Álvarez, addresses the ethical implications of the conception of old age in the stoicism of Seneca.

The second article, «Ethics and inappropriate behavior in research practice», by Jesús del Río Martínez and Diana del Río Valdés, analyze ethical aspects in the research process, or as they point out, the research system.

In «The Impact on the Decriminalization of Abortion in Maternal Mortality in Mexico», Madrazo et al. demonstrate that the decriminalization of abortion in 2007 in Mexico City, which among one of its justifications was to seek the reduction of maternal deaths caused by clandestine abortions, but the authors point out that he has not fulfilled that assumption.

In «Introduction to the conceptual categories of bio-law in legal discretion», by Alejandro Castaño Bedoya, the ontological and anthropological assumptions of various arguments in the law applied to bioethics are analyzed, such as physicalism or interactionist dualist theories.

Lourdes Velázquez, in «The medical aspect and the existential dimension of the disease: bioethical reflections», emphasizes the need to deepen the existential aspect of the disease as a part of the way of being and living of the human being.

The number closes with the review of the book «The Civilization of Anahuac: philosophy, medicine and science», by de José Enrique Gómez Álvarez.

Published: 2019-12-20