[The role of the Brazilian Society of Bioethics and the "Frente pela Vida" in the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of critical bioethics].

Abstract

The scope of this article is to analyze the role of the Brazilian Society of Bioethics (SBB), especially its involvement in the "Frente pela Vida" movement, during the most critical years of the COVID-19 pandemic, between 2020 and 2021. It involved research anchored in the theoretical frameworks of Critical Bioethics and was analyzed using qualitative methodology with a dialectical approach. The results demonstrate that during the period analyzed the Brazilian federal government acted in alignment with a "major nebula" that generated several bioethical conflicts. This nebula was sustained by an amalgam of interests of economic power, sectors of medical corporatism, and conservative political-ideological groups. On the other hand, the SBB and the entities of the Frente pela Vida articulated themselves as a "counter-nebula" of denunciation and resistance to bioethical conflicts. Considering that the attempt to act on the interests of the "nebula" persist, especially in the Brazilian State, the conclusion drawn is that the SBB and the entities of the Frente pela Vida must remain mobilized in social control, in the defense of the Unified Health System, democracy and human rights in the country.