Bioinequalities: Rethinking Legal Responses to the Biological and Intergenerational Harm Caused by Inequality

Abstract

Being the subject of unequal treatment is commonly accepted as a stressful psychological experience; however, its physical impact is less well understood. According to recent scientific work in the field of neuroscience and epigenetics, stress and trauma that arise as a consequence of unequal treatment may have a biological as well as psychological impact. Further, those harms may be inherited by future generations. In this chapter, we argue that law should address the bodily effects of unequal treatment—what we call bioinequalities—and that to do so requires a shift in focus away from an individualised model of harm in favour of a model that understands the harm as shared among individuals, and across communities and generations. Bioinequality is experienced both at the intersection of and embedded within multiple sexed, raced, classed, and disabled (among others) identities and is interwoven with the social and material world, and the psychosocial environment. We challenge the individualising orientation of existing laws attempting to redress inequality, calling instead for a legal response that accounts for the intersectional and intergenerational harms of inequality.