In this slow and prolonged return to the new normality, the great issues of Bioethics arise once again in various situations of daily life. We cannot forget that this discipline, being interdisciplinary, encourages dialogue among diversified knowledge in order to seek dialogue and convergence of positions.

Thus, this issue presents a variety of topics, the central axis of which is informed consent. However, we also find others of great interest, such as the dilemmas arising from the intervention of biotechnologies in the human body and the ever constant reflection on human pain and suffering.

In the first article of this issue, Claude Vergès, Noemí Farinoni and Matilde Rojas present a study carried out in Panama, in which they investigate the mechanisms used by research ethics committees to evaluate research protocols financed by pharmaceutical industries. One of the aspects evaluated was compliance with international and national regulations for research ethics committees. Another was the informed consent provided to the participants of the protocols and the confidentiality of the data obtained, as well as the integrity of the data reported. The article presents a very clear picture of research ethics committees in Panama.

In the second article, Blanca Arcos, Verónica López, María de la Luz Casas and Víctor Martínez address the issue of decision-making capacity in people with disabilities. Based on the importance of capacity in medical care and health research, the authors propose taking up some documents that promote the adjustment of processes and the detection of the needs of people with disabilities in order to favor their full right to make decisions. Based on the principle of principlism of respect for autonomy, and on the principles of personalism of respect for sociability and subsidiarity, as well as on the human rights approach, the article aims to protect the right to decide of people with disabilities, together with the right to receive personal assistance to assess their functioning and to receive help in the areas they need.

In the third article, Octavio Carranza presents a philosophical reflection on pain and suffering in the light of one’s own existence. He starts from the experience of pain as a phenomenological experience that opens us to the Self and exposes the ethical conflict of otherness. The author describes the physician’s task as going beyond the mere instrumentalization and practicality of the relationship, to meet the patient on the plane of his pain and suffering as another self, but he is prevented from a full understanding of these phenomena as they are existential and therefore incommunicable.

Fourthly, Sandra Anchondo and Cecilia Gallardo deal with a highly topical issue, namely, the possibility of enhancing human capacities and eliminating pain and suffering in order to enjoy life to the fullest. In contrast, they present positions that defend that disabilities are not necessarily bad and should not be lived as such, but, on the contrary, allow us to live a full life. Thus, throughout the pages, the authors open the debate on the interventions of biotechnologies in human life and their ethical aspects, considering that it is precisely in terms of limits and vulnerability that we define ourselves as humans.

Finally, in the fifth article of this issue, José Enrique Gómez Álvarez and Nora Hilda Chávez return to the subject of informed consent to analyze it in the light of oncology patients. In their study they detect the factors that undermine the informed consent process which, in turn, results in the patient’s lack of cooperation in his or her own treatment. Taking into account situations such as stress, the patient’s previous misjudgments about the treatment and the severity of the disease, and based on the study of specific cases, the authors designed a decisional algorithm that can facilitate the informed consent process, which helps to measure its effectiveness. It is worth noting that the authors advise not only to follow the algorithm, but to accompany the patient’s decision with virtues such as prudence, in order to help him/her understand clearly and objectively the risks and benefits of the treatment offered.

This review, written by José Enrique Gómez Álvarez, refers to the book La legalización del aborto en la Ciudad de México. ¿Hacia una dignificación de la mujer? (The Legalization of Abortion in Mexico City: Towards a Dignity of Women?), it presents the author’s description and analysis, from a personalist perspective, of the main arguments put forward by feminist movements to decriminalize abortion in Mexico.