No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics and Health Care

Abstract

Is paternalism justified? Who ought to control access to new reproductive technologies? What position should the good society take on the issue of abortion? These issues have been the staple of the medical ethics literature for the past twenty years. Susan Sherwin's book makes an important addition to this literature by using a feminist perspective to consider them. The book is divided into three parts, which reflect the task Sherwin takes to be essential to a feminist approach to bioethics. The first provides a theoretical framework for considering ethical problems in health care. Here the author explains what feminism is, the relationship between ethics as traditionally understood and feminist ethics, and what a feminist ethics of health care might be like. The second part explores four traditional problems in health care ethics: abortion, new reproductive technologies, paternalism, and research. The third part expands the bioethics landscape by presenting three issues