André Hellegers, the Kennedy Institute, and the Development of Bioethics: The American–European Connection

Abstract

Bioethics took shape in the early 1970s in large part because of the crucial role played by André Hellegers and the Center for Bioethics of the Kennedy Institute at Georgetown University, which Center and Institute Hellegers helped found with Sargent Shriver. The Center for Bioethics was not alone but engaged in an important interplay with the Borja Institute of Ethics (Barcelona), the St. John of God Hospital (Barcelona), the International Study Group in Bioethics of the International Federation of Catholic Universities, and the European Association of Centers of Bioethics. In these latter contexts, the contributions of Francesc Abel i Fabre, who was influenced by Hellegers, created and sustained an early connection between American and European bioethics, the latter being also directly shaped by Hellegers. In America and then in Europe, Hellegers’ use of the term bioethics proved able to focus diverse interests and energies so as within a decade to engender and shape a field that commanded international influence.