The experience of an English professor dying of ovarian cancer in Margaret Edson’s play Wit shows that both literary and medical discourse obfuscate and objectify rather than promote communication of “simple human truths” that dignify life and death.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(9):858-864. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.9.imhl1-1509.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
We consult our doctors for expert medical advice, not phenomenological analysis, but perhaps a wide gulf ought not separate empirical science and research from phenomenological reflection and analysis on illness.
Health care professionals and those who teach them must be prepared to examine the implications of carbon dioxide emissions on human well-being and make decisive steps towards sustainability.
Herman Melville's account of Bartleby the scrivener has something to teach us about the interactive nature of refusal and the empathy necessary for an exchange of values in the setting of conscientious refusal.