Many Latin American countries are being devastated by excessive loss of life from Covid-19, many sectors of society falling below the poverty line, and health systems being overwhelmed. As collateral damage, some countries in the region are witnessing an eruption of populism and autocratic trends and an increasing erosion of already weak and unstable democracies. Can bioethics be a useful tool for managing this crisis? Argentina provides a case study.

In their paper “Bioethics and Populism: How Should Our Field Respond?” Mildred Solomon and Bruce Jennings have sparked an important debate about the role of bioethics in our current political climate. They warn of the risk to constitutional democracy posed by the rise of authoritarian populist re...