Bioethics and Women: Across the Lifespan

Abstract

This book deals with bioethical issues relevant to women across the life span. "Gender justice" is the starting point and the end point of the author's approach to the issues addressed. The first section offers an overview of bioethics, critiques prevalent approaches to bioethics and models of the physician-patient relationship, and sketches distinguishing aspects of women's health care. Classical pragmatists and feminist standpoint theorists are enlisted in support of "an egalitarian perspective", and positions on the moral status of fetuses and those already born are examined. The second section identifies topics that are directly or indirectly related to women's health; these include prenatal testing, childbirth and newborn decisions, treatment of minors and the elderly, assisted reproduction, abortion, eating disorders, domestic violence, breast and gynecological cancer, end of life care, and research on women. Brief cases illustrate variables related to each topic. Empirical and theoretical considerations follow each set of cases; these are intended to precipitate more expansive and critical examination of the questions raised. The book concludes with discussion of an egalitarian ideal to be pursued through an ethic of virtue or supererogation rather than obligation. By embracing this ideal, according to the author, moral agents support a more demanding level of morality than guidelines or laws require.