Some argue that law is the discipline which has mixed most prominently with bioethics, and that bioethicists can be seduced by the law and by legal procedures. While there is a great consensus that law has influenced bioethics in significant and important ways, certainly much more than it influenced other "law and..." disciplines, scholars dispute as to the exact role which the law plays in bioethics, the goals it purports to achieve and the implications of its relationship with the discipline (...) of bioethics. This Article aims to explore the relationship between law and bioethics and calls for a careful evaluation of the law's contributions to bioethics. Specifically, it will be argued that while the law contributed extensively to the development of bioethics it introduced a language and a way of thinking that are not necessarily appropriate to handle and resolve bioethical issues, and which, in significant portion of cases, was irrelevant and had little impact on decision-making and behavioral patterns of patients. Moreover, law's interference with and shape of bioethical issues resulted in serious threats to some of the major characteristic of such issues and brought about to other societal concerns which the law did not consider seriously. The article will conclude that it is now time to re-evaluate the direction in which bioethics should take in the next years, specifically whether it should continue to integrate with law or other disciplines, or alternatively become a more autonomous and independent discipline. (shrink)

In this book Bruno Latour brings together these different approaches to provide a lively and challenging analysis of science, demonstrating how social context..

In Sri Lanka, termination of pregnancy, other than in extreme circumstances, is strictly illegal. Among the public and large sections of the medical community there is widespread support for some degree of liberalization of the law, particularly where this relates to serious genetic conditions which can be identified prenatally. Tension emerges out of a publicly maintained conservatism on issues of abortion on the one hand and a growing disconnection from unregulated practices of termination in the private sector on the other. (...) Social science approaches have much to contribute when understanding the ‘therapeutic gap’ that opens up and, in particular, the way that local ideas of fate, destiny and how suffering might be ameliorated become blended with the predictive power of genetic testing. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the dimensions of unsafe motherhood, contrasting data from economically developed countries with some from developing countries. It addresses many common factors that shape unsafe motherhood, identifying medical, health system and societal causes, including women's powerlessness over their reproductive lives in particular as a feature of their dependent status in general. Drawing on perceptions of Jonathan Mann, it focuses on public health dimensions of maternity risks, and equates the role of bioethics in conscientious medical care (...) to that of human rights in public health care. The microethics of medical care translate into the macroethics of public health, but the transition compels some compromise of personal autonomy, a key feature of Western bioethics, in favour of societal analysis. Religiously‐based morality is seen to have shaped laws that contribute to unsafe motherhood. Now reformed in former colonizing countries of Europe, many such laws remain in effect in countries that emerged from colonial domination. UN conferences have defined the concept of ‘reproductive health’ as one that supports women's reproductive self‐determination, but restrictive abortion laws and practices epitomize the unjust constraints to which many women remain subject, resulting in their unsafe motherhood. Pregnant women can be legally compelled to give the resources of their bodies to the support of others, while fathers are not legally compellable to provide, for instance, bone‐marrow or blood donations for their children's survival. Women's unjust legal, political, economic and social powerlessness explains much unsafe motherhood and maternal mortality and morbidity. (shrink)

This target article considers the ethical implications of providing prenatal diagnosis (PND) and antenatal screening services to detect fetal abnormalities in jurisdictions that prohibit abortion for these conditions. This unusual health policy context is common in the Latin American region. Congenital conditions are often untreated or under-treated in developing countries due to limited health resources, leading many women/couples to prefer termination of affected pregnancies. Three potential harms derive from the provision of PND in the absence of legal and safe abortion (...) for these conditions: psychological distress, unjust distribution of burdens between socio-economic classes, and financial burdens for families and society. We present Iran as a comparative case study where recognition of these ethical issues has led to the liberalization of abortion laws for fetuses with thalassemia. We argue that physicians, geneticists and policymakers have an ethical and professional duty of care to advocate for change in order to ameliorate these harms. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the dimensions of unsafe motherhood, contrasting data from economically developed countries with some from developing countries. It addresses many common factors that shape unsafe motherhood, identifying medical, health system and societal causes, including women's powerlessness over their reproductive lives in particular as a feature of their dependent status in general. Drawing on perceptions of Jonathan Mann, it focuses on public health dimensions of maternity risks, and equates the role of bioethics in conscientious medical care (...) to that of human rights in public health care. The microethics of medical care translate into the macroethics of public health, but the transition compels some compromise of personal autonomy, a key feature of Western bioethics, in favour of societal analysis. Religiously‐based morality is seen to have shaped laws that contribute to unsafe motherhood. Now reformed in former colonizing countries of Europe, many such laws remain in effect in countries that emerged from colonial domination. UN conferences have defined the concept of ‘reproductive health’ as one that supports women's reproductive self‐determination, but restrictive abortion laws and practices epitomize the unjust constraints to which many women remain subject, resulting in their unsafe motherhood. Pregnant women can be legally compelled to give the resources of their bodies to the support of others, while fathers are not legally compellable to provide, for instance, bone‐marrow or blood donations for their children's survival. Women's unjust legal, political, economic and social powerlessness explains much unsafe motherhood and maternal mortality and morbidity. (shrink)

Genetic research in human beings poses deep ethical problems, one being the problem of distributive justice. If we suppose that genetic technologies are able to produce visible benefits for the well being of people, and that these benefits are affordable to only a favored portion of society, then the consequence is obvious. We are introducing a new source of inequality. In the first section of this paper, I attempt to justify some concern for the distributive consequences of applying genetics to (...) human beings. This concern transcends a mere preoccupation for material equality. I argue that genetic inequality can undermine the very basis of social cooperation, at least regarding health care. The second section is more practical. My aim is to defend how, at least in some legal and cultural frameworks , the undesired distributive consequences of genetics are more likely to arise and more difficult to avoid. (shrink)