Justice is a key guiding ethical principle in bioethics. When justice is addressed in bioethics the focus is primarily on the fair distribution of resources, that is, distributive justice. In this thesis, I argue that a distributive conception of justice is unable to adequately address many of the relevant issues of justice within bioethics. These issues are better understood and addressed using a social conception of justice. Social justice is concerned with ensuring that the norms and rules of social structures (...) are fair and equitable. I argue that social and distributive justice are not only compatible, but also complementary. As a result, both conceptions of justice need to be applied to bioethical issues if we are to achieve a truly just outcome. As a case study, I apply this analysis to the controversial issue of the inclusion of pregnant women in clinical research trial. (shrink)

Medea killed her children to take away the smile from her husband's face, according to Euripides, an offence against nature and morality. What if Medea had still been carrying her two children, perhaps due to give birth within a week or so, and had done the same? If this would also have been morally reprehensible, would that be a judgment based on her motives or on her action? We argue that the act has multiple and holistic moral features and that, (...) in fact, there is no absolute principle, such as the right of the fetus to life, which governs our moral judgments about fetal-maternal conflicts. We suggest that they illustrate a pervasive feature of human moral discourse and can only be addressed by attending to a range of negotiable moral considerations which depend on particular features of each situation. (shrink)

What is distinctive about a feminist analysis of law? Conversely, what does it mean to characterize the law (or a law) as distinctively “male” as a way of criticizing its injustice? It is widely assumed by both feminist scholars and nonfeminists or curious onlookers that a feminist analysis of law must have distinctive features that set it off from mainstream/“malestream” theories of law. Feminist scholars often try to “sell” feminist analysis to interested newcomers and try to break down the recalcitrance (...) of those who seem to want to marginalize and dismiss it precisely by claiming a difference of perspective for feminist analysis of which no well-educated lawyer or legal commentator can afford to be ignorant. Meanwhile, feminist claims are also challenged by those who think they can reach the same conclusion on independent grounds for therefore not beingdistinctivelyfeminist; “What makes that particularly feminist?” the communitarian, for example, will ask, faced with an argument that feminism is critical of the individualistic bias of the legal system. (shrink)

Hospital ehtics committees are often consulted when cmopeting patient interests blur an otherwise clear course of medical treatment. Nowhere is the potential for competing interests greater than in the field of abosterics, wherer obstetricians have traditionally viewed themselves as having two patients: the pregnant woman and the fetus.