Right to health, biopower and bioethics

• Main Author: José Roque Junges
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculdade de Medicina de Botucatu (Unesp) 2010-01-01
• Series: Interface: Comunicação, Saúde, Educação
• Subjects: Derechos Humanos; Derecho a la salud; Tecnologías; Biopoder; Bioética
• Online Access: http://socialsciences.scielo.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1414-32832010000100017&lng=en&tlng=en

The right to health is being more and more affected by the Biopower new configurations, no more only determined by the State, as in Foucault's analyses, but mainly by the symbolic power of the market. The biotechnological enterprises stir up increasing claims for consuming in health. These products are techno-semiotic agencies of the subjectivity in health, rendering their use as a right. In this situation it is important to return to the Right to Health comprehension of the International Conventions and the Alma-Ata Conference, proving the interdependence between Human Rights in general and the Right to Health in particular, mainly aiming at the social determinants of health that define more basic rights. The Human Rights perspective permits the proposal of a public health bioethics, different from the clinical bioethics, more appropriate for considering the collective implications of the right to Health, not reduced to a mere consumption of technologies.