Bioethics

This book presents some of the challenges bioethics in Latin America faces today. It considers them through the lenses of vulnerable populations, those incapable of protecting their own interests, such as the illiterate, women in societies disrespectful of their reproductive rights, and research subjects in contexts where resources are scarce.

Does life have meaning? What is flourishing? How do we attain the good life? Philosophers, and many others of us, have explored these questions for centuries. As Eva Feder Kittay points out, however, there is a flaw in the essential premise of these questions: they seem oblivious to the very nature of the ways in which humans live, omitting a world of co-dependency, and of the fact that we live in and through our bodies, whether they are fully abled or disabled. Our dependent, vulnerable, messy, changeable, and embodied experience colors everything about our lives both on the surfaceand when it comes to deeper concepts, but we tend to leave aside the body for the mind when it comes to philosophical matters. Disability offers a powerful challenge to long-held philosophical views about the nature of the good life, what provides meaning in our lives, and the centrality of reason,as well as questions of justice, dignity, and personhood.

Inside today's data-driven personalized medicine, and the time, effort, and information required from patients to make it a reality Medicine has been personal long before the concept of "personalized medicine" became popular. Health professionals have always taken into consideration the individual characteristics of their patients when diagnosing, and treating them. Patients have cared for themselves and for each other, contributed to medical research, and advocated for new treatments. Given this history, why has the notion of personalized medicine gained so much traction at the beginning of the new millennium? Personalized Medicine investigates the recent movement for patients' involvement in how they are treated, diagnosed, and medicated; a movement that accompanies the increasingly popular idea that people should be proactive, well-informed participants in their own healthcare. While it is often the case that participatory practices in medicine are celebrated as instances of patient empowerment or, alternatively, are dismissed as cases of patient exploitation, Barbara Prainsack challenges these views to illustrate how personalized medicine can give rise to a technology-focused individualism, yet also present new opportunities to strengthen solidarity. Facing the future, this book reveals how medicine informed by digital, quantified, and computable information is already changing the personalization movement, providing a contemporary twist on how medical symptoms or ailments are shared and discussed in society. Bringing together empirical work and critical scholarship from medicine, public health, data governance, bioethics, and digital sociology, Personalized Medicine analyzes the challenges of personalization driven by patient work and data. This compelling volume proposes an understanding that uses novel technological practices to foreground the needs and interests of patients, instead of being ruled by them.

Feminists today are re-imagining nature, biology, and matter in feminist thought and critically addressing new developments in biology, physics, neuroscience, epigenetics and other scientific disciplines. Mattering, edited by noted feminist scholar Victoria Pitts-Taylor, presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or 'naturalizing' turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of matter, knowledge, and practice, and addresses biological materialization as a complex and open process. This volume insists that feminist theory can take matter and biology seriously while also accounting for power, taking materialism as a point of departure to rethink key feminist issues. The contributors, an international group of feminist theorists, scientists and scholars, apply concepts in contemporary materialist feminism to examine an array of topics in science, biotechnology, biopolitics, and bioethics. These include neuralplasticity and the brain-machine interface; the use of biometrical identification technologies for transnational border control; epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of the health effects of social stigma; ADHD and neuropharmacology; and randomized controlled trials of HIV drugs.A unique and interdisciplinary collection, Mattering presents in grounded, concrete terms the need for rethinking disciplinary boundaries and research methodologies in light of the shifts in feminist theorizing and transformations in the sciences.

Prenatal screening for genetic disorders is becoming an increasingly widespread phenomenon across the globe. While studies have highlighted the importance of women's experiences of such screening, little is known about men's roles and direct involvement in this process. With a focus on the experiences of both women and men, this text offers an innovative and passionate account of the gendered nature of prenatal screening. Drawing on interview data with pregnant women and their male partners in a UK city, Reed provides a compelling analysis of maternal and paternal roles in prenatal screening. Through this analysis, the book raises important issues around genetics, gender and screening practice. With a focus on the gendered production of 'good' and 'bad' genes, the book explores differences between visual technologies and blood screening. It also explores the gendered nature of genetic responsibility and the impact this has on parenting roles. Extending its arguments into other key debates in prenatal genetics - including a focus on the impact of screening on other types of stratification, including ethnicity and class - Reed provides an original and comprehensive analysis of some of the most pressing concerns in the field to date. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the sociology of health and illness, science and technology studies, gender studies, feminist bioethics and medical anthropology, as well as professionals in the fields of midwifery and genetic counselling.

Doctors routinely deny patients access to hormonal birth control prescription refills, and this issue has broad interest for feminism, biomedical ethics, and applied ethics in general. Medical Sexism argues that such practices violate a variety of legal and moral standards, including medical malpractice, informed consent, and human rights. Jill B. Delston makes the case that medical sexism serves as a major underlying cause of these systemic and persistent violations. Delston also considers other common abuses in the medical field, such as policy on abortion access and treatment in childbirth. Delston argues that sexism is a better explanation for the widespread abuse of patient autonomy in reproductive health and health care generally. Identifying, addressing, and rooting out medical sexism is necessary to successfully protect medical and moral values.

Completely up to date and featuring a friendly style, THE SOCIOLOGY OF HEALTH, ILLNESS, AND HEALTH CARE: A CRITICAL APPROACH, 8th Edition delivers a comprehensive, cutting-edge overview that will challenge you to think creatively and analytically about health and health care. You'll gain an understanding of how social forces affect who gets ill, how we think about illness, how we get our health care, and what it is like to work in the health care field. You will also have the chance to explore the ethical dilemmas that underlie modern health care as well as the politics behind those dilemmas. Although the text focuses on health within the United States, it also examines how health, illness, and health care differ around the world.

The ethics of sports medicine is an important emerging area within biomedical ethics. The professionalization of medical support services in sport and continuing debates around issues such as performance-enhancing technologies or the health and welfare of athletes mean that all practitioners in sport, as well as researchers with an interest in sports ethics, need to develop a clear understanding of the ethical aspects of the sport-medicine nexus. This timely collection ofnbsp;articles explores the conceptual and practical issues that shape and define ethics in sports medicine. Examining central topics such as consent, confidentiality, pain, doping and genetic technology, this book establishes an important baseline for future academic and professional work in this area.