The injustice of unsafe motherhood

Developing World Bioethics 2 (1):64–81 (2002)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the dimensions of unsafe motherhood, contrasting data from economically developed countries with some from developing countries. It addresses many common factors that shape unsafe motherhood, identifying medical, health system and societal causes, including women's powerlessness over their reproductive lives in particular as a feature of their dependent status in general. Drawing on perceptions of Jonathan Mann, it focuses on public health dimensions of maternity risks, and equates the role of bioethics in conscientious medical care to that of human rights in public health care. The microethics of medical care translate into the macroethics of public health, but the transition compels some compromise of personal autonomy, a key feature of Western bioethics, in favour of societal analysis. Religiously‐based morality is seen to have shaped laws that contribute to unsafe motherhood. Now reformed in former colonizing countries of Europe, many such laws remain in effect in countries that emerged from colonial domination. UN conferences have defined the concept of ‘reproductive health’ as one that supports women's reproductive self‐determination, but restrictive abortion laws and practices epitomize the unjust constraints to which many women remain subject, resulting in their unsafe motherhood. Pregnant women can be legally compelled to give the resources of their bodies to the support of others, while fathers are not legally compellable to provide, for instance, bone‐marrow or blood donations for their children's survival. Women's unjust legal, political, economic and social powerlessness explains much unsafe motherhood and maternal mortality and morbidity.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

A two-tiered reparations theory: A reply to Wenar.Thom Brooks - 2008 - Journal of Social Philosophy 39 (4):666-669.
Seeing through the Fog: Love and Injustice in "Bleak House".Joyce Kloc McClure - 2003 - Journal of Religious Ethics 31 (1):23 - 44.
Testimony, testimonial belief, and safety.Charlie Pelling - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (1):205-217.
Argumentative Injustice.Patrick Bondy - 2010 - Informal Logic 30 (3):263-278.
Two Concepts of Epistemic Injustice.David Coady - 2010 - Episteme 7 (2):101-113.
A Critique of Hermeneutical Injustice.Laura Beeby - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (3pt3):479-486.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
29 (#474,441)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?