The study is organized as follows: in the second chapter, I will describe and analyze feminist bioethics and its theoretical premises. I discuss the aims feminist bioethicists have set for their academic enterprise and explore the grounds for feminist bioethics: what kind of epistemology do feminist bioethicists refer to?
Who are the subjects or moral agents in their writings? Furthermore, I examine the central themes in this particular academic discipline, which emphasizes the importance of embodiment, contexts, relationships, and sexual difference in the analysis of bioethical questions.
In the third chapter, I will discuss the feminist criticism of the concept of autonomy and the feminist alternatives to it. The autonomy debate represents an evolved discussion between non-feminist and feminist bioethicists. The chapter provides an overview of the autonomy discussion, but it is not within the scope of this dissertation to present the debate in full; an entire dissertation could be devoted to this single subject. Nevertheless, an overview helps to understand feminist bioethics and provides a basis for further development.
In the fourth chapter, I will address stem cell research. I discuss the ethical questions that generally arise in connection with stem cell research and use, both in non-feminist and feminist bioethics.
These questions include the moral status of the human embryo, the just use of resources, the protection of donors and the commercialization of stem cells. I describe and analyze both non-feminist and feminist arguments for each question and show how the questions are covered, first in stem cell reports and also in the bioethical literature.
73 Women’s Health Issues, 10, No. 3 (2000); Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 3, No. 1-2 (2006).
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In the fifth chapter, I will make a case for one direction in which feminist bioethics could be developed based on the analyses in chapters two through four. I include the remarks about feminist bioethics in relation to the concept of autonomy and stem cell research. I emphasize two areas in particular which call for further investigation: the use of empirical methods in bioethics and the development of the concept of agency.
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2 Central Theoretical Themes in Feminist Bioethics
Some feminist bioethicists are critical about of having a feminist bioethical theory and even of the need for one. They maintain that feminism is simply a perspective on bioethics.74 For example, Susan Sherwin uses the metaphor of lenses as a tool for understanding the cooperation of feminism with other moral approaches. Lenses are an effective metaphor for the different standpoints that can be used either individually or simultaneously. None of the lenses alone provides a true or accurate view of bioethics.75 Other feminists claim that bioethics will be left untouched unless a new theory of bioethics is formulated.
For that reason, they call for a feminist bioethical theory.76 These feminist bioethicists claim that a new bioethical theory might be needed in order for the transformation to be compatible with feminist values.77 They maintain that the goal is not to promote a new group to power, but rather to change the whole practice of bioethics and medical practice.
Sherwin maintains that the problem with mainstream bioethics’ inability to deal with practical and conceptual perspectives together is due to the “foundational view of theories” in mainstream bioethics78. In this view, “the most common way to think of moral theories in bioethics is to credit them with providing foundations for the more specific moral judgments of practical moral life.”79 As a result, mainstream bioethics perceives theories as holding an absolute status. The foundational view represents theories as if they could build a concrete, ultimate base for ethics. Since theories have a prominent place in bioethics, mainstream bioethicists are tempted to extend the local, theory-based moral systems to global contexts. Sherwin points out that no theory provides reliable grounds for solving all ethical problems. Accordingly, the foundational view of theories should not be absolute, but perceived as a metaphor.80 Sherwin argues that “the governing architectural metaphor suggests that there is a well-ordered structural relation among different types of ethical claims.”81 Admittedly, theories provide helpful insights into bioethics. The insights should not, however, be called theories, but perspectives. Different
74 Purdy 1996, 145; Sherwin 2001, 24.
75 Sherwin 2001, 23-24. “I recommend that we think of the ‘competing’ theoretical options as a set of lenses available for helping us understand the complex moral dimensions of bioethics. Lenses are readily switched when we want a different ‘view’
of something; they may even be layered on top of one another. … Some lenses will provide clearer perceptions of particular problems than others, but we may still gain understanding by trying on different options.” Sherwin 2001, 23.
76 Lindemann Nelson 2003, 889; Tong 1997, 1-5, 245; Wolf 1996, 4-5. “Many feminists argue that their task is to construct new theory rather than to refine theories that leave everything exactly as it was.” Lindemann Nelson 2003, 889.
77 “Our task is to come up with new theory, not to refine theories that leave everything exactly as it was.” Lindemann Nelson 2000, 492, 496. See also Holmes 1999, 57; Lindemann Nelson 2003, 889; Overall 1996, 174, 178-179; Rawlinson 2001, 414;
Wolf 1996, 5-7, 32-34.
78 Sherwin 2001, 15.
79 Sherwin 2001, 14.
80 Sherwin 2001, 12-18.
81 Sherwin 2001, 17.
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perspectives and different metaphors are needed in order for bioethics to be a comprehensive field.
Feminist bioethicists claim that feminism is one of those perspectives.82
Even though feminist bioethicists are divided in their attitude on the need for a new theory, they are united in their conviction that bioethical theories need to be reformed.83 Regardless of the form of the transformation, the future of bioethics should not be “satellite bioethics”84 in which ethical problems related to different groups are discussed separately and the core of bioethics remains unaltered. Rather, the goal of bioethics is to explore how identities are construed and what meaning different groups are given in this construction.85 Although they desire the transformation of bioethical theory, feminist bioethicists seem to focus especially on the following issues: the nature of moral knowledge, moral agency, and sexual difference, body and embodiment, contextuality, relationality and power. In the following sections, I will explore these themes more closely and show how they define the goal of transformation. It should be noted that these themes are not single issues but are closely related. My interest is to examine whether there are certain elements that unite these themes and whether these elements could clarify the idea of transformation.