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Why a Feminist Approach to Bioethics?
- Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 6, Number 1, March 1996
- pp. 1-18
- 10.1353/ken.1996.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
Many have asked how and why feminist theory makes a distinctive contribution to bioethics. In this essay, I outline two ways in which feminist reflection can enrich bioethical studies. First, feminist theory may expose certain themes of androcentric reasoning that can affect, in sometimes crude but often subtle ways, the substantive analysis of topics in bioethics; second, it can unearth the gendered nature of certain basic philosophical concepts that form the working tools of ethical theory.