Kleurenblindheid in de bio-ethiek. Diagnose, pathofysiologie en behandelopties.

This paper is one of the first academic papers in the Dutch-speaking world about the need for a decolonization of bioethics. Drawing on examples from the Belgian context I illustrate the continuity between the historical role of the medical world in the colonial project and contemporary discrimination and structural racism in the healthcare system. The main argument in the paper is that bioethics as a discipline fails to provide an answer to institutional racism in the health care system, because the way bioethics thinks about race relies on a myth of neutrality and color blindness. I argue that the race problem of bioethics is explained by (1) the forward-looking nature of bioethics and the tendency to locate medical racism in the past, (2) the link of bioethics with western philosophical traditions overly emphasizing individual autonomy and contractual relations, while simultaneously concealing social and political power relations and (3) the whiteness of bioethics and medical ethics committees. I use concepts from feminist bioethics and from decolonial feminist theory to indicate how the decolonization of bioethics might look like, both in terms of bioethical theory formation and for bioethics as a practice.