Text Analysis of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights

Abstract

The Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights published in 2005 and signed by 191 countries, is a milestone in bioethics for expanding its scope beyond biomedical issues, emphasising social justice. It is important that the Declaration be broadly disseminated to the general public, including children and teenagers, as it has been done with other international documents. With this in mind, a classic content analysis of the Declaration was carried out, which allowed for the regrouping of the phrasal topics. Three nuclei of content were found: a self-referential nucleus, a nucleus of biomedical issues and a nucleus of ethical values and principles of social justice. It is hoped that this analysis will help the dissemination and greater understanding of the document, making the document better known by a wider public.

Bioethics; Human rights; Education