Ethical and legal analysis of medical tourism in Colombia. Risks in communicative instrumentalization

Abstract

In a globalized context, where the conventional world expands into the virtual, an ethical and legal analysis of medical tourism in Colombia is developed through identifying potential risks via communicative instrumentalization. The supply and demand for cosmetic surgery along with the associated marketing, as it reflects on desire, beauty, and makeup, promote latent ethical tensions. The legal uncertainty that gravitates around the cross-border flow and the indeterminacy within the different legal systems externalizes on several fronts that should be addressed and which in turn pose challenges. The background of the reflections that can be seen make it essential to claim fundamental prerogatives, inherent to humanity, which seem to vanish when presented with the frequent and penetrating insertions coming from realities built and rooted in the fluctuations of prices.