Women and Children in Health Care

Although women and children comprise the majority of health caregivers and patients, they often do not receive equal treatment. This book addresses that discrepancy by focusing on health care issues that particularly affect women and children. Topics considered include gender stereotypes in medicine and in adolescent socialization, fertility curtailment and enhancement, coercive treatment during pregnancy, fetal tissue transplantation, decisions regarding newborns, decision-making by minors, the feminization of poverty and its impact on women's and children's health, and the meaning and role of "family" in health care decisions. Women and Children in Health Care examines these topics, often using actual cases to develop the analysis. The author describes a care-based model of reasoning while warning of its possible use as a rationale for exploitation of women in the context of health care. Different versions of feminism are explained and applied to different issues, with the author advocating an egalitarian perspective that involves the use of one's power to empower others. Health care approaches that affect the lives of women and children are some of the most controversial yet genuinely humanitarian issues facing society today. Because of the timeliness of the topics covered and the depth of detail, this book is necessary reading for all those interested in bioethics, health care, women, and children

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.