scholarly journals Integrating intersectionality into autonomy: Reflections on feminist bioethics and egg freezing

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Michiel De Proost
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Feminist Inquiry ◽  
Feminist Bioethics ◽  
Egg Freezing ◽  
Social Egg Freezing

The field of bioethics struggles with the complexity of diversity and power differences. ‘Intersectionality in Clinical Medicine: The Need for a Conceptual Framework’ (Wilson et al., 2019) and its accompanying commentaries, though inventive and thought-provoking, overlook key principles of biomedical ethics. In this paper, I reflect on the debate and consider how an intersectional approach could inform normative theorizing. Traditional principlist reasoning leads to serious problems when we are trying to deal with the complexities of intersectionality, and this is especially true if we look at the principle of autonomy. I develop the idea that intersectionality is more in line with feminist inquiry in bioethics that attempts to reconfigure autonomy. However, feminist critiques of autonomy often remain less than thoroughly engaged with intersectionality. The case of social egg freezing is used to further support this claim. By foregrounding an intersectional approach to the existing relational autonomy claims in this debate, the complicated relational and justice concerns of reproduction are better brought into focus.

The rationale behind systematic reviews in clinical medicine: a conceptual framework

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamideh Moosapour ◽  
Farzane Saeidifard ◽  
Maryam Aalaa ◽  
Akbar Soltani ◽  
Bagher Larijani
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Systematic Reviews ◽  
Clinical Medicine

scholarly journals On feminist engagements with bioethics

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Rada Drezgic
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Background Values ◽  
Bioethical Issues ◽  
Social Units ◽  
Feminist Bioethics

The article explores two questions: what is feminist bioethics, and how different it is from standard bioethics. Development of feminist bioethics, it is argued, began as a response to standard bioethics, challenging its background values, and philosophical perspectives. The most important contribution of feminist bioethics has been its re-examination of the basic conceptual underpinnings of mainstream bioethics, including the concepts of ?universality?, ?autonomy?, and ?trust?. Particularly important for feminists has been the concept of autonomy. They challenge the old liberal notion of autonomy that treats individuals as separate social units and argue that autonomy is established through relations. Relational autonomy assumes that identities and values are developed through relationships with others and that the choices one makes are shaped by specific social and historical contexts. Neither relational autonomy, nor feminist bioethics, however, represents a single, unified perspective. There are, actually, as many feminist bioethics as there are feminisms-liberal, cultural, radical, postmodern etc. Their different ontological, epistemological and political underpinnings shape their respective approaches to bioethical issues at hand. Still what they all have in common is interest in social justice-feminists explore mainstream bioethics and reproductive technologies in order to establish whether they support or impede gender and overall social justice and equality. Feminist bioethics thus brings a significant improvement to standard bioethics.

Beyond Monks and Mushrooms

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-60
Author(s):  
Sara Rushing
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Relational Autonomy ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Political Ethic ◽  
Political Vocabulary ◽  
Embodied Agency

This chapter lays the intellectual-historical groundwork for thinking about the “virtues of vulnerability,” by mapping the concept of humility inherited in Western thought from Christianity, and the concept of autonomy inherited from liberalism. After detailing what these inherited concepts are, it argues that they are problematic from the perspective of embodied agency and citizenship-subjectivity, and develops alternative versions that bolster, not undermine, democratic practice. Confucian political theory provides a nontheological but deeply relational conception of humility, including concrete practices for cultivating a distinctly political ethic that is not about lowliness, self-denial, or subordination to authority. Feminist philosophy’s concept of “relational autonomy” provides an account of autonomy as an ongoing process that requires supportive social conditions and networks of relations, not mere non-interference. Bringing these traditions together, this chapter develops the conceptual framework and political vocabulary of the project, and begins to flesh out an important new concept of humility-informed-relational-autonomy.

Emancipation on thin ice : Women’s autonomy, reproductive justice, and social egg freezing

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 357-371
Author(s):  
Michiel De Proost ◽  
Gily Coene
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Reproductive Justice ◽  
Reproductive Autonomy ◽  
Quality Of Treatment ◽  
Intersectional Analysis ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Egg Freezing ◽  
Social Egg Freezing

Abstract A growing number of women in different countries are freezing their eggs as a way to preserve fertility not just for medical reasons, but for what have been referred to as ‘lifestyle’ or ‘social’ reasons. Ethical debates so far have often focused on reproductive autonomy and gender inequalities in society. Based on a critical analysis of the available studies that explore women’s experiences, we conclude that women’s choice to freeze their eggs is much more ambiguous than mainstream approaches to bioethics usually suggest. Furthermore, we point to a gap in the literature of social egg freezing regarding issues of reproductive justice, including the multiple and intersecting structural conditions that govern who has access to this technology, and tease out some issues that still need to be further explored, such as the outcomes and quality of treatment for non-normative users. Expanding the debate with an intersectional analysis makes visible, as we demonstrate, how techniques such as social egg freezing fit into, and contribute to the propagation of, neoliberal gendered, heteronormative, and racialised societies.

Having it all? Where are we with “social” egg freezing today?

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Lockwood ◽  
Martin H. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Egg Freezing ◽  
Social Egg Freezing
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