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Decentering Whiteness in Feminist Bioethics: Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) as an Illustrative Case

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Reproductive Ethics II

Abstract

In 1999, Susan Wolf diagnosed what was missing in bioethics: “an analysis that places race, ethnicity, and gender at the center.” Since then, not enough progress has been made in “decentering” whiteness in bioethics. The use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the United States, and the bioethical discussion surrounding it, provides a window into the problem. Recent surveys of ART usage show racial disparities in access to ART and treatment outcomes. A personal testimony about egg freezing suggests a perceptual blindness when white experience is taken to be the norm. Nevertheless, bioethics, including feminist bioethics, has largely framed ART within the parameters of “normative whiteness.” This paper will argue that feminist bioethics needs to put race at the center of analysis and will suggest pathways for doing so. Decentering whiteness requires a consideration of epistemic limits and privilege, a reevaluation of the goals of feminism, and an embrace of empathy in service of a more responsive and flexible worldview.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Russell is citing the work of Thomas LaVeist. 2005. Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the United States. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

  2. 2.

    Mills worries, for example, that his work, especially The Racial Contract (1997), has had no impact on mainstream (white) political philosophy. He has tried to bridge abstract discussions of justice and rights with a concrete political discussion of racism, which, he argues, is itself a political system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Karey A. Harwood

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  1. Karey A. Harwood
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Correspondence to Karey A. Harwood .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Alden March Bioethics Institute, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Albany Medical College, Albany, New York, USA

    Lisa Campo-Engelstein

  2. Alden March Bioethics Institute, Program Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wellspan York Hospital, York, Pennsylvania, USA

    Paul Burcher

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Harwood, K.A. (2018). Decentering Whiteness in Feminist Bioethics: Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) as an Illustrative Case. In: Campo-Engelstein, L., Burcher, P. (eds) Reproductive Ethics II. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89429-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89429-4_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89428-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89429-4

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