Discussions on bioethics. An analysis of some thesaural solutions

Abstract

This work deals with some questions of matters of content, in relation to the way in which the subject of bioethics has been received into the various systems of documentary indexation. It has been proposed that this subject, which took root in the 1970s, be given a concise definition that would permit an evaluation of the way in which it is divided into the systems of representation of knowledge. Investigations have therefore been made to identify the relations between the concepts that concentrate some of the themes debated in bioethics, in order to evaluate the appropriateness of certain terminological definitions. Attempts have also been made to identify what inconsistencies are to be found in a thesaurus of bioethics where diverse ideological formats influence the relational and semantic structure.
Although various specialist and generalist thesauruses were compared, the investigation was focussed primarily on a vocabulary of bioethic terminology published by the Higher Institute of Health (ISS), the Italian Thesaurus of Bioethics (TIB).
The initiative of the Higher Institute for Health, which marked the beginning of the SIBIL project (Information System for Bioethics on-line) highlighted the subject of spreading information on bioethics in Italy. Moreover, seeing as how the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Science of Bonn is the reference centre for a European project that foresees preparing a multilingual thesaurus, of which TELS (Thesaurus Ethics in the Life Sciences) represents the backbone, it is felt that this chance should be taken to introduce in our country also a terminological clarification in support of the public debate on bioethical matters. Indexation of documents is in fact a job that has every right to form part of the process of communicating information, through which all citizens are entitled to be informed and to form their own opinions. Observations on the preparation of the TIB aim therefore of making this initiative known more than in the past, and to try to encourage interest from other institutions that control information resources on bioethics. This would also promote a semantic interoperability between indexation languages.