Ethical Issues in Women's Healthcare ― Practice and Policy

Numerous issues confront women's healthcare today, among them the medicalization of women's bodies, cosmetic genital surgery, violence against women, HIV, perinatal mental health disorders. This volume uniquely explores such difficult topics and others at the intersection of clinical practice, policy, and bioethics in women's health care through a feminist ethics lens. With in-depth discussions of issues in women's reproductive health, it also broadens scholarship by responding to a wider array of ethical challenges that many women experience in accessing health care.

Contributions touch on many themes previously tackled by feminist ethics, but in new, contemporary ways. Some chapters expand into new fields in the bioethics literature, such as the ethical issues related to the care of Indigenous women, uninsured refugees and immigrants, women engaged in sex work, and those with HIV at different life stages and perinatal mental health disorders. Authors seek to connect theory and practice with users of the health system by including women's voices in their research. Bringing to bear their experience in active clinical practice in medicine, nursing, and ethics, the authors contemplate new conceptual approaches to important issues in women's healthcare, and make ethical practice recommendations for those grappling with these issues. Topical and up-to-date, this book provides a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, clinical ethicists, and researchers working in some of the most critical areas of women's health and applied ethics today.

Lori d'Agincourt-Canning, PhD, is Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Her primary areas of research include clinical ethics, feminist theory, health care access, and disparity. Her recent articles can be found in publications such as The Journal of Clinical Ethics, The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics (2009), HEC Forum and Health Law in Canada.

Carolyn Ells, RRT PhD, is Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Biomedical Ethics Unit at McGill University, where she also has appointments in the Division of Experimental Medicine and Departments of Family Medicine and Social Studies of Medicine. She is a Research Associate at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, in Montreal, Canada. Her research addresses feminist ethical theory, ethical questions in practices and policies of health care delivery, and research ethics policy.