Vulnerability.

Collating the concepts of vulnerability through five regional perspectives on bioethics from the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, this article proposes a means of integration between the different approaches in order to seek a theoretical and normative basis for the field of global bioethics. It argues that only through opening continuous, critical, and self-critical dialogue within the international bioethical community will it be possible to achieve a sufficiently global understanding of vulnerability that is capable of identifying the means needed for addressing the conditions that leave certain groups and individuals more susceptible to "wounding" than others.