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What is morally new in genetic manipulation?

The investigation into the specific moral issues of genetic manipulation requires us to determine exactly the new moral issues of genetic manipulation. But even that determination requires us to consider whether the context in which we live and the method of moral reflection which we use is adequate enough to address genetic manipulation. Given the liberalist context in which we live, this paper argues that an act-oriented ethics is inadequate and that only a virtue-oriented ethics enables us to recognize and resolve the new problems ahead of us in genetic manipulation. Moreover, those problems have a common root, that is, that through genetics we will be in danger of objectifying the human subject.

Biomedical Research↗

Dignity and technology.

Technology has been developed in order to protect and safeguard human dignity; however, technology may also threaten it. The principle of human dignity plays an important role in assessing medical technology and medical practices.

Bioethical Issues↗

Feminist critiques of new fertility technologies: implications for social policy.

This essay aims to show how feminist theoretical and practical perspective have enriched and deepened debate about moral and social issues generated by the proliferation and commodification of new reproductive techniques. It evaluates alternative feminist appraisals beginning with the first group to organize a collective response to the medicalization of infertility and explores several weaknesses working within their assessment: objectification of infertile women, naturalizing constructions of motherhood, hostility to technology, and an overly simplistic conception of power relations. Next, it shows how subsequent feminists have reframed the issues to overcome these weaknesses, drawing on themes prominent in recent theoretical debates: the need to reclaim women's agency, to revalue mothering, and to reappraise power relations. Lastly, it weighs the prospects for a collaborative politics that is sensitive to the social marginalization of vulnerable women and suggests practical strategies for responding to mounting pressures to procreate at any price.

Dehumanization↗

When genes determine motherhood: problems in gestational surrogacy.

Gestational surrogacy in which a commissioning couple's egg and spermatozoon are united in vitro and the resulting embryo is implanted in a woman's uterus is, of all the new methods for overcoming infertility, the most genetically appealing. This is because the genes are often perceived as determining all aspects of human health, disease and even behaviour. Having a child with the genes of both parents has become far more attractive to most infertile couples than having one who is only genetically related to the father. However, gestational surrogacy has created a situation where one child has two mothers, each one claiming to be the 'true' mother having exclusive parental rights. Surrogacy arrangements also raise the question of the meaning of motherhood.

Contracts↗

Marginalized women's access to health care: a feminist narrative analysis.

In the emergent restructuring of health care, it is imperative to examine marginalized consumers' experiences with access to care so that the process addresses not merely the issue of rising health care costs, but also begins to meet the actual health care needs of diverse communities. This report of a feminist narrative study of access for low-income lesbians from several ethnic/racial groups provides critique of the US health care system from the standpoint of consumers and offers a transformative vision of what a just, effective, and compassionate system might encompass. By generating compelling evidence about the access afforded in current models of health care delivery, this study serves as an example of the significance of its methodological innovations, sampling from the margins, and narrative design.

Adult↗

QALYs (Quality Adjusted Life Years): a nurse's view.

Examines the political and ideological significance of measures of quality of life, specifically Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). Briefly reviews recent developments in the debate surrounding the economic and political functions of quality of life measures. The dialectic between conceptions of the quality of life and the implicit realpolitik of socio-economic pressures, ecological conditions, political ethos and cultural norms and expectations, is conceived as a powerful means for the critique of our aspirations concerning health. Argues that existing approaches to assessing quality of life, in denying this dialectic, have jeopardized their potential contribution to the planning, implementation and evaluation of health are policy. Resource allocation challenges us to develop openly ideological strategies and measures.

Australia↗

Ought we to sentence people to psychiatric treatment?

In principle, there seem to be three main ways in which society can react when people commit crimes under influence of mental illness. (1) The standard model. We excuse them. If they are dangerous they are detained in the interest of safety of the rest of the citizens. (2) The Swedish model. We hold them responsible for their criminal offence, we convict them, but we do not sentence them to jail. Instead, we sentence them to psychiatric treatment. (3) My model. We sentence them to jail, but offer them (voluntary) psychiatric treatment. The advantages of my model are obvious. We get a clear delineation of roles. We allow the psychiatrist to be just a doctor, not a warden. We liberate psychiatry of the objective of deciding whether people who were mentally ill when they committed criminal offences 'could have acted otherwise' -- a hopeless task. We allow that psychiatrists live up to their professional ethical code (The Hawaii Declaration). We treat psychically ill persons as 'normal', we allow them to repent their crimes, which renders easier their recovery. However, two objections to my model come to mind. First of all, is it not unfair to sentence people to jail who could not help doing what they did? And, secondly, the question of fairness set to one side, is it not inhumane to sentence mentally ill persons to jail? Is it not inhumane to the mentally ill persons themselves, and does it not mean that they will be a burden to other prisoners? In my paper I show that, if our system of criminal punishment takes a civilised form, neither of these objections carries any weight.

Child Abuse↗

Values and ethical principles in nursing.

In this paper I explore what kind of values enter into the different dimensions of the human being and how the principles of freedom, brotherhood and equality relate to the well-being of man, and further how technology, bureaucracy and specialization may curtail the observance of humaneness in nursing care. I also discuss the compatibility or incompatibility of values in nursing and the increasingly scientific nature of nursing. Respect for freedom is a condition for personal growth and development; recognition of the value of brotherhood is a condition for social participation; and equality a condition for meeting physical needs. However, these values are linked together and form a whole. The scientific nature of nursing contributes to the clarification of values in nursing. My doctoral dissertation, 'Self-care and nursing', on which this paper is based, deals with values and principles in nursing.

Beneficence↗

The professional values of English nursing undergraduates.

The purpose of the study was to examine and describe what English nursing undergraduates internalize as professional values. The method was qualitative; specifically, a grounded theory approach was used. The sample comprised 12 senior baccalaureate nursing students from two educational institutions in the north of England. Informants were volunteers who gave informed consent having been briefed on the purposes of the study and how their confidentiality would be protected. Data were collected through audio-taped interviews and the constant comparative method was used to analyse data. The findings revealed that informants perceived two concepts as central to their professional values. These were respect for patients and 'caring about the little things'. They valued the rights of patients to be treated with respect, to know what was happening to them and to have a say in what happened to them. They described the 'little things' as 'an approach with patients that gets through to them'; 'getting out the mirror so they can see themselves'; 'fixing their water so they can reach it'; worrying about someone's dentures or the cat they left at home. They expected that their values would be in conflict with common hospital practice. They valued 'fitting in' and 'going along' but retained their own ideas and values until such time as these could be implemented. They perceived themselves as powerless to create change as new graduates. They believed the overwhelming power resided in the hospital system and the ward sister/charge nurse. They were not inclined toward a career in hospital nursing.

Attitude↗

A plea for the heart.

Martyn Evans believes that it is a 'shocking feature' of brain-centred conceptions of death that they require us to regard as dead a person whose heart may continue to beat spontaneously. When it comes to neocortical conceptions of death, we might even be burying or cremating a 'breathing corpse'. If proponents of neocortical definitions of death suggest active interventions to stop the remaining spontaneous functions, in what sense, asks Evans, is this different from killing? Also, does it make sense to accept, as many proponents of brain-centred conceptions of death do, that it is proper to 'explant' organs from 'beating-heart cadavers', whilst squirming at the thought of cremating a 'breathing corpse'?

Attitude to Death↗