Untangling Bioethical Dilemmas: Narrative Ethics and Bodily Rights (No)
South Asia
Organization: Independent
Event: No
Call for Proposal for Edited Book
Editors: Dr. Prabhu Aloke N (O P Jindal Global University)
Dr. Lisa Thomas (Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University)
Untangling Bioethical Dilemmas: Narrative Ethics and Bodily Rights
In the recent past, the study of ethics has diversified into emerging branches with interdisciplinary areas of studies. While such studies require specialization in different disciplines, they also demand application of theoretical and empirical knowledge. In a quest to broaden the understanding of ethics to its sub- field of bioethics, this book proposal seeks to collate works that center on narrative ethics within the discourse of bioethics.
Narrative ethics unsettles the dominant positions that may shape ethical decisions in a given situation. When we consider the field of medicine, the human body gains more significance and the self of the subject dissolves, whereas in law, it is again the legal subject that often becomes the center of a legal debate that involves bodily particularities. The constructed nature of human body and personhood necessitates one to engage with identity politics while seeking ethical positions in issues related to human body. Interestingly, sometimes the visible body is proscribed of personhood and in other cases, the body becomes invisible for a legal person. Legibility of a human being is determined by the hierarchical stratification that exists in the understanding of personhood and bodily differences. It is to reverse the power relations within medicine and law, and to situate the stories of the subject in ethical decision-making process that narrative ethics becomes important. It provides a ground that values the personal, political and the intimate while also enabling engagements with questions pertaining to human body.
Moore v. Regents of the University of California, decided by the United States Supreme court in 1990 poses questions related to property rights in one’s body and claim to integrity of one’s body as fully human, bringing into focus the entanglements of medical ethics and privacy law. While privacy is presumed to be a fundamental right of personhood, it is violated when some bodies become objects of scrutiny under medico- legal parameters. Further in 2022, the US Supreme court in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, overruling Roe v. Wade, decided that there is no federal constitutional right to abortion leaving the question of abortion to individual states to decide. Similar contestations that have emerged in different parts of the world in the recent times entail an approach to bioethics that values the subject and their individual personal stories and experiences.
It is the dialogic nature of a story that allows medico- legal practitioners and the legal subject and a patient have meaningful exchanges of information to take ethically right decisions which cannot be settled by legality or illegality of a given act. In medical situations, it requires exploration of ethical concerns if not legal and socio- political values that bind a patient and medical staff to a protocol other than the words of the contract, representing an informed consent right up to the death of the patient and beyond.
Often the discourses of ethical choices around death and dying focus on one’s right to die. However, the lack of social justice and health care system that cater to people belonging to underprivileged communities with intersecting identities of gender, sexuality, caste, class, race and ethnicity can lead to premature death of massive number of people. In legal narratives on dead bodies, the question of personhood and dignity of the person after death quite often go disregarded and remains contested as can be seen in cases from India like Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan v. Union of India decided in 2002; Nithari Murder cases of 2006 and Rangaraju @Vajpayee v. State of Karnataka decided in 2023 among others. These cases involve sexual abuse of dead body and the vexed question of extension of dignity of human body. Literary works hold the potential to expand the understanding of personhood and human dignity to reflect upon legal understanding of the dead body, death and the dying.
It is also important to consider the ethics of storytelling that decides whether it is a reliable narrator who tells the story of a subject, that is living or dead. Can one assume that the person who speaks from the body provides the reliable narrative, or it is the medical professionals who can provide a reliable narrative of one’s body? Do stories from legal judgments negate the person’s story regarding their body? Contributors may consider the paradigms of narrative ethics and bioethics to broaden the horizons of ethical thinking and the potential of stories in reinstating individual rights of privacy and bodily rights in general.
This book invites chapters that reflect voices that often go unheard in legal judgments and medical studies. The chapters may also include case studies, literary works and philosophical approaches that takes up narrative ethics as a tool for negotiating bioethical issues. Contributors that may include medical practitioners, lawyers, writers, independent scholars and academics are encouraged to contribute their perspectives from across the globe in general and global south in particular.
If this invite interests you, please send an abstract of 500 words with a title and key words by 15th of October 2024, along with a short bio. The full draft of the contribution will be due by March 20th of 2025. The prospective publisher for this book will be either Ethics Press or Routledge.
If you have any query, please write to paloke@jgu.edu.in.
The book can include, but is not restricted, to the following areas:
Legal narratives, privacy and bodily rights
Medical cases, ethical dilemmas, body- property rights
Reproductive rights, ethical choices, personhood of fetus
Caste, tribe, religion, sexuality, social justice and ethical judgments
Transgender identities, medical ethics and personal choices
Transgender children, transgender adolescents, puberty- pausing medication
Death, dying, palliative care, bodily rights, dignity and personhood
Ethical storytelling, power relations, reliable narrator
Disposable bodies, bodily parts, bio- medical waste and ethical dilemmas
Humanoids, Personhood, Privacy and Bodily Rights
Aloke Prabhu