LRT I used to teach bioethics, covering abortion, euthanasia, vivisection, the long and shameful history of [white, male] scientists running horrific human experiments and producing dangerous concoctions that destroy the lives of Black people, prisoners, women, babies in utero.

it was an incredibly taxing unit to teach. In the classroom, always, were for example 20-ish year old males with outspoken views on decriminalisation of abortion etc like our bodies are their business. Really confronting, awful stuff.

I mention this because it became horribly clear from the literature - far more so than the students - that euthanasia as a movement and a policy/legislative reform (and bioethics topic) desperately needs critical race and intersectional feminist theory to be remotely ethical.

or as I said to my mum who has been facing major heart surgery decisions over the last couple of weeks (she is now post op and doing really well) don’t let them assume that the lives of little old ladies are worth less.

she had a consult with a male heart surgeon who was like oh look the operation or living with the condition are much of a muchness you could die either way and sought a second referral from her woman GP to a woman surgeon and now she’s in recovery. Ya know what I mean?

we live in a society that undervalues women at every level and that includes aging grandmas who are fabulous and interesting people with rich histories and priceless family knowledge. They gave us life on this earth.

anyway the hateful rhetoric from Abbott et al has real impact on well-being of people whose lives he talks about with such cavalier disregard. There is a direct line from him to those young males in bioethics class who confidently pronounce on state control of my internal organs.

there was a small and appalling story in the news last time I taught bioethics, about [funding for] a research project on the sexual satisfaction of male partners of women living with endometriosis or something like that it was dreadful I can’t be googling it...

which prompted me to write up a general bioethics explainer about racism, ableism, misogyny and homophobia in “medical” and other scientific research, should that be of interest: https://imatthewsblog.com/2017/06/03/someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet/