Global crises related to environmental changes are undermining healthcare structures. Yet, the medical practice itself contributes to this situation by responding to a logic of consumption and by indiscriminately generating pollution. To what extent are these behaviors counterproductive by contributing to a global evil? A medical ethic for the future, which would integrate environmental care into the prerogatives of medical practice, seems necessary.
This ethic already exists and is embodied in what for decades has been referred to as “bioethics”. Van Rensselaer Potter considered this discipline to be a necessary wisdom for the use of techniques and knowledge specific to the life sciences, and Fritz Jahr saw it as a moral obligation towards all living beings. However, it is the most pragmatic but also the most individualistic application proposed by André Helleghers and, following him, Beauchamp and Childress that has been retained and widely applicated.
Keywords
Bioethics, sustainable development, transversality