Mediterranean meeting on bioethics

Abstract

Bioethics is fundamentally concerned with the problem of the quality of life. Promoting it involves first of all the protection of the quality of life which already exists. Every effort must be done nationally and in international fora to promote an ever better quality of life in the conditions of life of humanity as a whole and of all individual persons. Bioethics is not only concerned with medical problems. Its horizons include all other problems connected with human and non-human life. In fact it is only within the understanding of this wider context of life in general that bioethics can tackle any problem which it comes across and seeks to understand. The "Istituto Siciliano di Bioetica" has organised several Mediterranean Meetings on various topics of bioethics. These meetings are intended to promote intercultural dialogue between the peoples of the different cultures and religions who inhabit the regions around the Mediterranean Sea, to help in the search for a bioethics which would be common to these different countries. They are also intended as opportunities for the search of that ethical truth that goes beyond the differences in cultural religious backgrounds which the participants represent. This search for truth must be done together since it lies beyond the points of views and judgements of any participant. These intercultural exchanges on the subject of life are very important for another reason: to sensitize, more and more, each culture represented (Western, Islamic, Balcan, Hebrew, Greek, Latin) to the value of life.