Cristina Richie
I am a Lecturer of Ethics of Technology at the University of Edinburgh, and was previously a Lecturer in the Philosophy and Ethics of Technology department at the Delft University of Technology (2020-2023) and an Assistant Professor in the Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies Department at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University (Greenville, NC) (2017-2020). I have also taught at Kings’ College London, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Tufts University. In 2019, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and in 2021, I was endorsed by the British Academy for a UK Global Talent Visa.
My research is dedicated to clean, just, and ethical health care and technology through the development of strategies and policies. In addition to my monographs, Principles of Green Bioethics: Sustainability in Health Care (Michigan State University Press, 2019); Environmental Ethics and Medical Reproduction (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), I am the author of over fifty articles in journals including The Lancet, American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Hastings Center Report.
In addition to being the joint-Editor of Global Bioethics, I am also on the editorial board of Global Bioethics Enquiry and was a guest editor of The New Bioethics 2020 volume on "Sustainability and Bioethics." My writing awards include the William E. Lapus Health Sciences Author Medal (2019), the Catholic Health Association Annual Theology and Ethics Colloquium Award (2013), and the San Ramon Valley Times Gold Pen Award (1999).
I am the Head of the Netherlands Unit (Rotterdam) of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and hold a nominated fellowship at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University (Deerfield, Il). I have been a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center (USA) in 2011, the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law, KU Leuven in 2018, the Just World Institute, University of Edinburgh, in 2019 and the Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, in 2019.
My research is dedicated to clean, just, and ethical health care and technology through the development of strategies and policies. In addition to my monographs, Principles of Green Bioethics: Sustainability in Health Care (Michigan State University Press, 2019); Environmental Ethics and Medical Reproduction (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), I am the author of over fifty articles in journals including The Lancet, American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Hastings Center Report.
In addition to being the joint-Editor of Global Bioethics, I am also on the editorial board of Global Bioethics Enquiry and was a guest editor of The New Bioethics 2020 volume on "Sustainability and Bioethics." My writing awards include the William E. Lapus Health Sciences Author Medal (2019), the Catholic Health Association Annual Theology and Ethics Colloquium Award (2013), and the San Ramon Valley Times Gold Pen Award (1999).
I am the Head of the Netherlands Unit (Rotterdam) of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and hold a nominated fellowship at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity at Trinity International University (Deerfield, Il). I have been a visiting scholar at the Hastings Center (USA) in 2011, the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law, KU Leuven in 2018, the Just World Institute, University of Edinburgh, in 2019 and the Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, in 2019.
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Books by Cristina Richie
Medicalized reproduction (MR) is a phrase this book will use to summarize the intervention of technology into human reproduction, from pre-conception gamete retrieval, to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), to birthing suites. It is broader than assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and includes any form of human reproduction that relies on medical resources. MR is, very often, a lifestyle procedure that is given to meet a reproductive project. Its purpose is not necessarily to address, cure, or treat infertility but to provide options in reproduction. To rule out all environmental evaluation of MR as “unfair” to those with infertility is founded on a faulty premise. MR caters to the fertile and infertile, with growing numbers of people availing themselves of services. MR is thus poised for environmental evaluation not only as a procedure which increases population and uses resources, but also as a health care offering that is a clinically unnecessary carbon expenditure, and a reproductive choice in a time of climate change.
Thus, the triplicate nexus of this book is (1) the way in which the medical industry exacerbates carbon dioxide emission through facilitating reproduction—mostly in high carbon, low population growth nations—(2) the way in which global carbon emissions are increased through medically assisted procreation as a medical procedure linked to other medical procedures, and (3) the way MR children contribute to the birth rate and global carbon emission. These can each be addressed as separate ethical concerns, in that even if one factor is defeated or dismissed, the other two would stand. Instead of looking at these as separate ethical issues, a three-fold ethical approach is in place, which aligns with the triplicate nexus of the book.
In (1), biomedical ethics maintains that the health care has a corporate social responsibility to reduce carbon emissions while also providing lifesaving medicine to all; thus, the provision of MR as a non-clinically necessary procedure, given in a time of environmental precarity is evaluated. For (2), climate ethics argues that global carbon emissions must be reduced in all private and public sectors; therefore, MR an elective service that produces carbon emissions is evaluated. For (3), sexual, procreative, and parental ethics must include environmental impact of reproductive decisions; therefore, MR in a time of population growth and climate change is considered as a continuation of decades of work on reproductive ethics. These ethical commitments are also connected to broader ethical issues of justice, sexism, economics, and wellbeing, thus making each argument against MR in a time of environmental catastrophe more compelling.
MR is part of the medical lifestyle of an increasing number of couples and singles. Indeed, the general consensus that MR is really “just another way to make a baby” is evident not only by its frequency, but also through international recognition, such as the granting of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr. Robert G. Edwards, one of the innovators of reproductive technology. MR is dependent on an economized, regulated, medical industry, as such, they are open for a different sort of ethical scrutiny than one that would be applied to natural procreation. Technology has fundamentally changed the discussion on biomedical ethics, climate ethics, and reproductive ethics. This book considers how.
Green Bioethics parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance. Through these four principles, Green Bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The principles of Green Bioethics are:
- Distributive Justice (Allocate Basic Medical Resources before Special Interest Access)
- Resource Conservation (Provide Health Care Needs before Health Care Wants)
- Simplicity (Reduce Dependence on Medical Interventions)
- Ethical Economics (Humanistic Health Care Instead of Financial Profit)
The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources. The principles of Green Bioethics, in tandem with the concrete examples given in this book, will support sustainability in health care.
Papers by Cristina Richie
Hospital care and physician and clinical services are the two largest carbon contributors to health care—exceeding even healthcare structures. While significant work is already being done on carbon reduction in health care and sustainable technologies, less attention has been paid to sustainable health care technologies and even less to the “paradox of prevention”—the idea that preventive health care technologies may extend lifespans and thus increase the carbon of health care both in an individual’s life and in the medical industry overall. That is, the number of medical carbon years, similar to the idea of (monetary) cost/ life year.
This article will examine current preventative health care technologies and develop the “paradox of prevention.” The aim is to inform how ethicist might think about sustainability in preventive health care technologies in the future.
Richard Armitage insists that the climate crisis is “far outside the purview of clinical medicine” in response to our Comment.
We disagree. The UK National Health Service, the US National Academy of Medicine, and the World Medical Association have called on health professionals to act. Some reforms require action by health-care systems (eg, optimising supply chains and reducing hospitals’ excessive energy consumption). Individual clinicians can do their part as well. Greene and colleagues asked physicians to reassess their reliance on disposables. We suggested that physicians could re-examine their prescribing practices to improve clinical outcomes, reduce costs, and reduce the carbon footprint of health care.
ethics frameworks to include notions of environmental
sustainability. While there have long been calls for
healthcare ethics frameworks and decision-making
to include aspects of sustainability, less attention has
focused on how research ethics frameworks could
address this. To do this, we first describe the traditional
approach to research ethics, which often relies on
individualised notions of risk. We argue that we need to
broaden this notion of individual risk to consider issues
associated with environmental sustainability. This is
because research is associated with carbon emissions
and other environmental impacts, both of which
cause climate change health hazards. We introduce
how bioethics frameworks have considered notions of
environmental sustainability and draw on these to help
develop a framework suitable for researchers. We provide
a case study of data-driven health research to apply our
framework.
As such, this article will first overview the carbon emissions in health care. It will, second, offer five reasons why carbon calculations are insufficient to address sustainability in health care. Third, the article will derive normative concepts from the goals of medicine, the principles of biomedical ethics, and green bioethics—the very locus which AI in health care sits—to propose health, justice, and resource conservation as criteria for sustainable AI in health care. In the fourth and final part of the article, examples of sustainable and unsustainable development and use of AI in health care will be evaluated through the three-fold lens of health, justice, and resource conservation. With various ethical approaches to AI in health care, the imperative for environmental sustainability must be underscored, lest carbon emissions continue to increase, harming people and planet alike.
Medicalized reproduction (MR) is a phrase this book will use to summarize the intervention of technology into human reproduction, from pre-conception gamete retrieval, to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), to birthing suites. It is broader than assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and includes any form of human reproduction that relies on medical resources. MR is, very often, a lifestyle procedure that is given to meet a reproductive project. Its purpose is not necessarily to address, cure, or treat infertility but to provide options in reproduction. To rule out all environmental evaluation of MR as “unfair” to those with infertility is founded on a faulty premise. MR caters to the fertile and infertile, with growing numbers of people availing themselves of services. MR is thus poised for environmental evaluation not only as a procedure which increases population and uses resources, but also as a health care offering that is a clinically unnecessary carbon expenditure, and a reproductive choice in a time of climate change.
Thus, the triplicate nexus of this book is (1) the way in which the medical industry exacerbates carbon dioxide emission through facilitating reproduction—mostly in high carbon, low population growth nations—(2) the way in which global carbon emissions are increased through medically assisted procreation as a medical procedure linked to other medical procedures, and (3) the way MR children contribute to the birth rate and global carbon emission. These can each be addressed as separate ethical concerns, in that even if one factor is defeated or dismissed, the other two would stand. Instead of looking at these as separate ethical issues, a three-fold ethical approach is in place, which aligns with the triplicate nexus of the book.
In (1), biomedical ethics maintains that the health care has a corporate social responsibility to reduce carbon emissions while also providing lifesaving medicine to all; thus, the provision of MR as a non-clinically necessary procedure, given in a time of environmental precarity is evaluated. For (2), climate ethics argues that global carbon emissions must be reduced in all private and public sectors; therefore, MR an elective service that produces carbon emissions is evaluated. For (3), sexual, procreative, and parental ethics must include environmental impact of reproductive decisions; therefore, MR in a time of population growth and climate change is considered as a continuation of decades of work on reproductive ethics. These ethical commitments are also connected to broader ethical issues of justice, sexism, economics, and wellbeing, thus making each argument against MR in a time of environmental catastrophe more compelling.
MR is part of the medical lifestyle of an increasing number of couples and singles. Indeed, the general consensus that MR is really “just another way to make a baby” is evident not only by its frequency, but also through international recognition, such as the granting of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Dr. Robert G. Edwards, one of the innovators of reproductive technology. MR is dependent on an economized, regulated, medical industry, as such, they are open for a different sort of ethical scrutiny than one that would be applied to natural procreation. Technology has fundamentally changed the discussion on biomedical ethics, climate ethics, and reproductive ethics. This book considers how.
Green Bioethics parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance. Through these four principles, Green Bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The principles of Green Bioethics are:
- Distributive Justice (Allocate Basic Medical Resources before Special Interest Access)
- Resource Conservation (Provide Health Care Needs before Health Care Wants)
- Simplicity (Reduce Dependence on Medical Interventions)
- Ethical Economics (Humanistic Health Care Instead of Financial Profit)
The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources. The principles of Green Bioethics, in tandem with the concrete examples given in this book, will support sustainability in health care.
Hospital care and physician and clinical services are the two largest carbon contributors to health care—exceeding even healthcare structures. While significant work is already being done on carbon reduction in health care and sustainable technologies, less attention has been paid to sustainable health care technologies and even less to the “paradox of prevention”—the idea that preventive health care technologies may extend lifespans and thus increase the carbon of health care both in an individual’s life and in the medical industry overall. That is, the number of medical carbon years, similar to the idea of (monetary) cost/ life year.
This article will examine current preventative health care technologies and develop the “paradox of prevention.” The aim is to inform how ethicist might think about sustainability in preventive health care technologies in the future.
Richard Armitage insists that the climate crisis is “far outside the purview of clinical medicine” in response to our Comment.
We disagree. The UK National Health Service, the US National Academy of Medicine, and the World Medical Association have called on health professionals to act. Some reforms require action by health-care systems (eg, optimising supply chains and reducing hospitals’ excessive energy consumption). Individual clinicians can do their part as well. Greene and colleagues asked physicians to reassess their reliance on disposables. We suggested that physicians could re-examine their prescribing practices to improve clinical outcomes, reduce costs, and reduce the carbon footprint of health care.
ethics frameworks to include notions of environmental
sustainability. While there have long been calls for
healthcare ethics frameworks and decision-making
to include aspects of sustainability, less attention has
focused on how research ethics frameworks could
address this. To do this, we first describe the traditional
approach to research ethics, which often relies on
individualised notions of risk. We argue that we need to
broaden this notion of individual risk to consider issues
associated with environmental sustainability. This is
because research is associated with carbon emissions
and other environmental impacts, both of which
cause climate change health hazards. We introduce
how bioethics frameworks have considered notions of
environmental sustainability and draw on these to help
develop a framework suitable for researchers. We provide
a case study of data-driven health research to apply our
framework.
As such, this article will first overview the carbon emissions in health care. It will, second, offer five reasons why carbon calculations are insufficient to address sustainability in health care. Third, the article will derive normative concepts from the goals of medicine, the principles of biomedical ethics, and green bioethics—the very locus which AI in health care sits—to propose health, justice, and resource conservation as criteria for sustainable AI in health care. In the fourth and final part of the article, examples of sustainable and unsustainable development and use of AI in health care will be evaluated through the three-fold lens of health, justice, and resource conservation. With various ethical approaches to AI in health care, the imperative for environmental sustainability must be underscored, lest carbon emissions continue to increase, harming people and planet alike.
This joint-authored paper will, first, introduce the concept of biomimetics and highlight philosophical concerns about the appropriation of nature, such as the naturalistic fallacy and social concerns of ecofeminist ethics. The paper will, second, present the use of biomimetics in medicine, arguing for the vast potential for human health based on concrete examples spanning nanotechnologies for vaccines, cartilage repair, and tissue engineering, followed by a discussion of the need to place biomimicry within embedded ecosystems which may affect the efficacy of human design. In the third part of the paper, ethical reflection on ecological values that may support or obstruct the development of biomimicry in health care technologies, including environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and implications of human alterations of nature (e.g., genetic engineering) will be presented. The paper will conclude by arguing for a nuanced approach to biomimicry in health care. If contextual caution is taken in human applications of biomimicry, nature can be redeemed as a normative guide without encountering the problems raised by the naturalistic fallacy or ecofeminist ethics. Further utilization of biomimicry in medicine ought to be pursued as much for pure scientific knowledge as for applications in health. However, in this technological era, which must be beholden to environmental values for the sake of human survival, medicine must question not only if humans can be trusted with nature, but also if we can trust nature itself.
We offer two active cases that highlight in/compatibilities between biomedical ethics and ethics of technology. The first case, a collaborative research project between an academic medical university and a technology university, demonstrated that ethics may foster co-creation of digital healthcare innovation. The second describes a multidisciplinary workshop at a technology university, which developed an ethical framework for sustainable artificial intelligence in biomedical technologies.
Advances in medical technologies disrupt traditional conceptions of ethics in technology and simultaneously pose challenges for biomedical ethics, which comments on such advances. We identified significant conceptual and practical barriers in applying the ethical convergence of these two fields and offer a convergent ethic that maintains ethical fortitude and practical translatability to emerging medical technologies.
This paper will first overview the uses and prevalence in rehabilitation technology, with a focus on its use and development in the Netherlands. Then, it will present the primary ethical arguments in favour of these technologies—benefit to user and scientific progress —in tension with (but not necessarily in opposition to) environmental impact and distributive justice. All health care technologies rely on resource use and produce carbon emissions, which contribute to global climate change and climate change health hazards. Ethically, there must be an appropriate balance of benefit for individuals (the technology) and global health (climate change health hazards). Second, rehabilitation technologies, which are underpinned by engineering and manufacturing, thrive on constant improvements, increasingly sophisticated programming, and technological obsolescence. These are often supported by grant-funding organizations. Rather than making technologies more affordable and widely disseminated, oftentimes the opposite is true. Despite offering only marginal benefits, cost is the same as the older versions, or higher. This increases gaps in access, while simultaneously clustering health care tech in affluent areas, thus perpetuating misdistribution of resources. Just allocation of health care tech must be embedded in the ethos of engineering, manufacturing, and funding so scientific progress can benefit everyone in society.
The paper will conclude with a discussion of the ethical issues in rehabilitation technologies, with a focus on policy development for engineers, manufacturing companies, and grant agencies. Engineers can recognize the difference between technological developments that will be statistically significant and clinically relevant with those that are economically and environmentally ethical, and design accordingly. Manufactures must confront the reality that circular economies are often unpractical for technological progress—which relies on linear developments—and thus redesign lifecycle processes, instead of appealing to “the future” of sustainable and just health care technologies. Grant agencies, such as the Dutch Research Council (NOW) and European Union (EU) could have environmental impact and justice at the core—not peripheral—of funding decisions.
Health care technologies, such as rehabilitation technology, do not have to hinder sustainability and justice. In fact, they can support both, but only if ethical issues are highlighted and addressed. A global society cannot progress at the expense of the planet or the majority of people that inhabit it.
First, the paper identifies general uses of non-human animals. Humans use animals for companionship, assistance in work, food and material consumption, and experimentation in medical research. Second, the paper recognizes that non-human animals have a larger cosmological purpose, apart from human use: they exist for God’s sake and for their own sake. Given their four uses and two-fold theological purpose, Christians may place the use of non-human animals in medical research hierarchically within other uses of non-human animals. This ordering is the third task of the paper. Fourth, the paper offers ethical comments on the use of sentient non-human animals in medical research. These comments will be developed from the principle of proportionality and natural law theory. Both guide and justify the use of sentient non-human animals in medical research. The paper will conclude by reorienting the uses of non-human animals from merely an instrumentalizing, anthropocentric function to a theocentric existence, thereby offering a theologically-based ethical rationale for using non-human animals in medical research. Non-human animals have many uses, but for Christians the purpose of animals exceeds their utility.
Green informed consent would mirror standard informed consent both in the information about the variety of treatments to choose from—along with carbon data—and information about the ramifications of each choice, from recovery time, to cost, to resource use. The NHS is responsible for 18 million tons of carbon dioxide each year; 25% of England’s total public sector emissions. Given the urgency of the environmental crisis, the parameters of the Climate Change Act, and the desire of many people to participate in sustainability initiatives, green informed consent could effectively reduce carbon emissions with patient participation.
Since 1978, approximately 8 million babies have been born through MR. Rates of MR births will continue to expand exponentially in the future. 3 million MR infants were born in the last six years alone. More important than numbers, however, is carbon impact. One child born in the developed world increases carbon emissions equivalent to twenty children born in a developing nation. The majority of MR treatments and births occur in high-carbon countries. While natural reproduction increases population, the way in which MR children are conceived, gestated, and birthed contributes to resource consumption in a way natural procreation does not. Thus, it requires special attention as a non-curative, non-preventative medical treatment that uses an exceptional amount of natural resources.
Theorists writing about the biological children of gay people—as a blanket term for both gay men and lesbian women—often gloss over these facts. It is sloppy conceptual work to place gay men and gay women together when discussing LGBT/ Queer bioethics, yet this is often done for expediency. This paper will explore medical reproduction as a case study in LGBT/ Queer bioethics emphasizing that the homosexual experience—physically, socially, economically, emotionally, and politically—is not homogenous. Bioethicists must clearly define whose interests are at stake when advancing LGBT/ Queer bioethics and ensure that lesbians, and other queer women, are not disadvantaged.
However, in the United States, public health measures attempting to address obesity have little support for a variety of reasons. One place of resistance is the advent of “body positivity,” which reflects the earlier social commentary in Susie Orbach’s manifesto, Fat is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-diet Guide for Women. While Orbach’s mantra has been a useful propaedeutic in identifying sexist body standards, as society has moved from fat to obese, public health concerns have taken a backseat to libertarian feminism, which fails to examine lifestyles that not only lead to—but also maintain—obesity.
My presentation will offer a public health feminist ethic dually rooted in female liberation against patriarchal notions that women ought to be underweight and the public health concerns of obesity. Feminist public health ethics must accept women of all sizes and shapes without recklessly endorsing harmful practices. Fat is a feminist issue, but obesity is a public health issue.
First, I will provide evidence-based data on climate change related health hazards, which disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable worldwide. Second, I will address “climate change deniers” and argue that, regardless of the causes of climate change, mitigating climate change related health hazards is part of the Christian tradition of healing and justice. Third, I will confront the academic responsibility of theological bioethics in addressing climate change related health hazards through public theology and biblical scholarship. I will conclude the paper by offering Evangelical environmental bioethics as a framework with which to engage this matter of moral significance.
First, I will overview the history of medical abuse towards homosexuals in contrast to widely held modern beliefs that homosexuality is neither a physical nor mental illness. Second, I will address potential clinical indications for fertility treatments for gay and straight couples, such as low sperm count, anovulation, or blocked reproductive tubes. Third, I question on what basis medical treatments—such as ARTs—are given to physically and mentally healthy gay men and women. I will conclude by parsing the social and ethical significance of current ART practices, maintaining that even if these treatments are voluntarily chosen, they are a pernicious commentary on the “undesirability” of LGBT lifestyles and demonstrate complicity with homophobia, which seeks to restrict adults to heteronormative family models.
First, I will survey the litigious landscape of Evangelical lawsuits against the contraceptive mandate in the ACA. Then, I provide a brief Evangelical theology of contraception and abortion, inclusive of both progressive and conservative stances. Finally, I will appeal to the internal coherence of Evangelical bioethical theology. Due to the willingness of the vast majority of Evangelicals to accept contraception—and abortion when the life of the mother is in danger—I will make the case that Hobby Lobby, Grace College, Biola University, and other Evangelical institutions could have accepted the Affordable Care Act as written. Should further exemptions be sought under ‘repeal and replace’, Evangelicals must considered the arguments presented above.
This paper will provide an Evangelical perspective on “environmental” bioethics, arguing that a theological account of creation care and human dignity can synthesize—and even improve on—secular accounts of environmental bioethics. First, I will provide a brief history of environmental bioethics from 1971 to present. Then, I will draw upon scripture and the writings of Evangelical environmental theologians like Richard Bauckham (The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation, 2010) and Jonathan Wilson (God’s Good World: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Creation, 2013) to offer an ecological theology that supports the original articulation of bioethics. I will conclude by underscoring the similarities of secular environmental bioethics and Evangelical eco-theology, thus offering a new avenue for the development of Evangelical environmental bioethics.
First, I will locate the origins of bioethics from Van Rensselaer Potter’s 1971 book Bioethics: Bridge to the Future. Then, I will identify a “second wave” of environmental bioethics from the work of Jessica Pierce, who wrote during the 1990s and early 2000s. From 2012 to the present a third generation of environmental bioethics emerged through initiatives such as the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities affinity group for Environmental Bioethics, and NYU’s MA in Bioethics-Environment Track. Given the urgent social realities of climate change, medical educators must integrate environmental bioethics into their curriculum and address the mounting interest in sustainable medicine.
I will first describe the philosophical origins of medicalization through the theory of the gaze—developed by Jacques Lacan; the medical gaze—identified by Michel Foucault; and the male gaze—described by Laura Mulvey. Then, I will present multifaceted feminist critiques of medicalization. Feminist critiques of medicalization raise the concerns of political minorities and are particularly salient when reproductive health is at stake (Kristina Gupta, Barbara Andolsen, Adrienne Rich), but are not limited to this provincial domain. Rather, objections to patriarchal medicine are interdisciplinary and draw on transfeminism (Jack Halberstam, Alexandre Baril) and Crip feminism (Petra Kuppers, Alison Kafer) additionally. Feminist/s working in bioethics tend to regard Western medicine with a hermeneutics of suspicion, thus seeking to protect women from medical exploitation. Without essentializing gender, I will conclude the paper by considering the much-needed “critical distance” that feminism has put between the physician and the patient and the continual need for iconoclasm in bioethics, particularly from feminism/s.
In the former, a union is a grace that symbolizes the mystery of Christ’s love for the Church. In the latter a couple is united in a formative union that aids one on the path to sanctification. In recent years, the covenant marriage has even become a legally binding, recognized form of Christian marriage. Since the sacramental and the covenantal marriage are predicated on God instead of the human couple, patriarchy need not have a hold on pre- and post- marriage rituals.
This paper will briefly describe three forms of marriage: patriarchal, sacramental and covenantal. Although there is certainly overlap between the three, I will highlight aspects of patriarchal marriage present in most civil unions, explain the Catholic view on the sacrament of matrimony, and then proceed to an egalitarian presentation of the covenant of marriage for Evangelicals. Based on covenantal theology and scriptures such as Ephesians 5:25-28; 31-32, I will emphasize God as the progenitor, sustainer and redeemer of Christian marriage and eschew patriarchal forms as not fitting within egalitarian theology.
1. Understand the difference between sex and gender
2. Discuss how systemic sexism impacts career development
3. Appreciate the history of women entering the dental profession
4. Discuss the impact of gender expectations in professional decision making related to careers and practice patterns
First, I will provide evidence-based data on climate change related health hazards, which disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable worldwide. Second, I will argue that attention to mitigating climate change related health hazards is within the scope of bioethics. Third, I will confront the responsibility of academic bioethicists in addressing climate change related health hazards. I will conclude by highlighting three avenues for academic bioethicists to engage this matter of moral significance: curriculum, written scholarship, and public speaking.
1. a rejection of heterofuturity
2. a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic
3. an intersection for crip studies
"Green Bioethics: Environmental Sustainability in Health Care" will cover the carbon footprint of the US medical industry and avenues to sustainability.
The professors involved have extensive experience on search committees and departmental administration. The students involved are finishing (or have recently finished) their terminal degrees and are seeking (or have recently secured) academic employment. All those in
attendance are encouraged to raise their own questions, share their own experiences, and suggest
strategies that may be helpful to others.
- recognize that the common good includes the environment and ecosystem
- understand that there are differentiated responsibilities in mitigating climate change
- work towards implementing policy that reduces carbon at all levels through subsidiarity
Besides the practical and pastoral issues, there are also ethical or moral issues which attend our current medical technologies. Should we help someone to die with dignity? Should we encourage humane palliative care understanding that suffering is one tool which God uses in character formation? What is the meaning of illness and death for Christians?
With advanced technologies we face a variety of questions about disabilities. Many technologies now exist to prevent the birth of children with disabilities or debilitating illnesses. This lecture will provide a theology of disability and discuss pre-implantation genetic diagnosis [PGD].
Life is seldom so neat. People become drug addicts for many reasons: genetic predisposition, depression, to escape abusive situations, fear…
The Christian community needs a strategy with which to help people struggling with addiction, as well preventative programs need to be put into place.
The purpose of this lecture is to provide a Christians approached to the ethical issues around substance abuse.
However, HIV/ AIDS is a world-wide problem and spans all socio-economic and political borders. Christians must think carefully about how they ought to be dealing with this situation.
In this lecture our goal will to understand HIV transmission, examine profiles of people living with HIV, and look at modes for transmission containment.
This essay will contextualize the presence of women in the military, briefly examine current challenges for women combatants, and introduce the concept of civilian immunity as a part of the just war tradition. Civilian immunity has historically depended on the distinction between men as combatants and women as civilians. But, in light of the admittance of women into combat roles, these assumptions need to be clarified by returning to just war theory’s (JWT) emphasis on war status instead of sex stereotypes.
According to a paper in JME, evaluating the ethics of offering reproductive services against its overall harm to the environment makes unregulated ARTs unjustified, yet the business can move towards sustainability.
The paper's author, Cristina Richie, Theology Department, Boston College, lays out her argument for regulating ARTs in terms of carbon emissions, and how this could be done.