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It Is More Difficult to Justify Abortion If Fetuses Are Parts of Their Mothers
Published in Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw, Daniel Rodger, Agency, Pregnancy and Persons, 2023
Moreover, one can’t preserve a healthy entity’s bodily integrity by removing parts of it. Nothing could be further from the truth and little should be more obvious once the fetus is granted parthood status. It is not conceptually possible to protect someone’s bodily integrity by destroying a part of their body unless one is inflicting a pathology like the surgeon cutting healthy skin to remove a more dangerous pathological threat. Bodily integrity, taken literally, has to do with the integration of the body’s parts, their harmonious working together. So to violate bodily integration is to interfere with the functioning of those parts. The paradigmatic cases of the violation of bodily integrity involving fists, knives, bullets, poisons and surgical tools damage or remove body parts. However, a violation of the right to bodily integrity may even occur with the placing of a restraint on the body that is nondamaging, as the proper functioning of a person’s bodily parts involves them responding to the signals to move from other parts of the person.
Labor migration, vulnerability and human trafficking
Published in Wendy A. Rogers, Jackie Leach Scully, Stacy M. Carter, Vikki A. Entwistle, Catherine Mills, The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics, 2022
What precisely the harm in question is, however, is a matter for philosophical argument. Most people accept that the bodily integrity of individuals needs to be protected – otherwise, they will be harmed in direct, obvious, physical ways. Individuals can also be harmed in other, less tangible ways, though. For instance, most people accept that individuals have basic interests, such as access to means of subsistence, shelter and safety. Such interests are the subject of much human rights legislation, which stipulates that all humans share some basic interests which should be protected and safeguarded. If basic interests are not protected, then individuals are harmed, as their pursuit of their basic interests is thwarted. Finally, and important here, many philosophers assume that to lead a decent life, humans need more than just the protection of their basic interests. Instead, they also have interests that pertain to how to lead a life. Thus, in order to lead a decent life, human beings should also have the possibility to shape the life they lead, to think about the course that they want to give their lives. This is the domain of individual autonomy and agency, which I will discuss soon. What is important to note at this point is that autonomy interests can also be harmed, just as basic interests such as bodily integrity can.
Consent to treatment
Published in Gary Chan Kok Yew, Health Law and Medical Ethics in Singapore, 2020
Robin JA also opined that a balance has to be struck amongst competing interests. In this case, the “interest in the freedom to reject or refuse to consent to intrusions of her bodily integrity — outweighs the interest of the state in the preservation of life and health and the protection of the integrity of the medical profession”.71
Against Externalism in Capacity Assessment—Why Apparently Harmful Treatment Refusals Should Not Be Decisive for Finding Patients Incompetent
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2022
Brian D. Earp, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Julian Savulescu
Pickering et al. (2022) argue that patients who refuse doctor-recommended treatments should in some cases be deemed incompetent to decide about their own medical care—in part because of their decision to refuse treatment—even if they would otherwise have been considered competent. This, then, would allow doctors to override the patients? will and to enact the treatment against their wishes. Such a proposal should be rejected. Among other problems, Pickering et al. fail to distinguish the “apparent” self-harmfulness of a decision (i.e., based on the judgment of an outside party) from the actual (net) self-harmfulness of a decision based on the patient?s own distinctive worldview and values. They also rely on a false equivalence between dissimilar approaches to decision-making to dismiss the dominant anti-paternalist paradigm. Pursuing their suggestion would thus foster morally objectionable paternalism in medicine. It could lead to the imposition of genuinely unwanted treatments on non-consenting patients, and to the wrongful infringement of patients? bodily integrity.
Is Health-Related Digital Autonomy Setting the Autonomy Bar Too High?
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2021
Patient autonomy is concerned with conditions for autonomous action in health care contexts and requires that patients meet three criteria in making medical decisions, for example decisions about surgery or oncology treatment options. An individual must act with i) intention, ii) understanding and iii) be free from controlling influences (Beauchamp and Childress 2019). Informed consent is the mechanism by which respect for autonomous choice is demonstrated. Whilst patient autonomy protects autonomous choice within the clinical context, it also protects other morally significant patient interests such as the right to bodily integrity and trust in one’s physician2. It is precisely because medical interventions have a non-insignificant impact on one’s body that respect for patient autonomy becomes paramount. Similarly, the significant authority and power a medical professional potentially wields over a vulnerable patient also motivates the need to ensure patient autonomy. Respect for autonomy and the requirement of informed consent applies most strongly in the context of medical treatment: “An informed consent is an individual’s autonomous authorization of a medical intervention” (Beauchamp and Childress 2019, 120).
Reproductive health care status of the displaced tribal women in India: An analysis using Nussbaum Central human capabilities
Published in Health Care for Women International, 2021
Madhulika Sahoo, Jalandhar Pradhan
Nussbaum in her central capability list includes two items of particular relevance to reproductive health viz., ‘bodily health’ one being able to have good health, reproductive health, to be adequately nourished and to have adequate shelter. The second is ‘bodily integrity’ one being able to move freely from place to place; having one’s bodily boundaries treated as independent, i.e. being able to be secure against assault, including sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence. Having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and choices in matters of reproduction’ (Nussbaum, 2003). In the case of reproductive health, however, it is important to know not only the biological risks but the extent that ‘social arrangements’ let women down and constrain their choices (Dixon & Nussbaum, 2011). It is important to adopt the participatory process to apply the capability approach (Lorgelly et al., 2015).