One or more presenters were selected from a call for papers.
This panel will explore the ways in which the choices made in the legal system—at times without sufficient input from those most affected—influence women's health. Examples of this phenomenon can be found throughout health care. In medical research, for example, the long-permissible exclusion of women from clinical studies, coupled with the historical focus on primarily male or gender-neutral medical conditions, has resulted in well-documented gaps in knowledge regarding appropriate treatment options for female patients (particularly women of color). In the reproductive rights and technologies context, the services available to women may be affected by such legal doctrines as medical licensure, criminal law, and Constitutional and civil rights protections. Even in the traditional bioethics areas of informed consent and end-of-life decision-making, the assumptions underlying the legal doctrine— reflected, for example, in the models we use to determine how a typical patient would want a dispute to be resolved—may not adequately reflect the options that women would like to have. This panel will explore the ways in which the legal system’s approach to these issues affects women’s health, and how we might better integrate women’s voices—and their choices—into the discussion.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.