Facilitating Feminist Ethics Consultations: A Legal Solution to Encourage Innovative Ethical Analysis

This thesis aims to make feminist theory an integral part of hospital ethics committee ("HEC") decisionmaking. Specifically, the feminist theories discussed in this thesis prioritize an awareness of social context. The small-scale study conducted for this thesis found that HECs already consider social context to some extent but that they may also be open to more systematic integration. As opposed to courts, HECs provide a space where innovative alternatives (e.g., feminist approaches) to principalist bioethical decisionmaking can be tested. In order to encourage the development of such alternatives, this thesis has proposed a framework for the relationship between courts and HECs so that patients can benefit from the strengths of both entities in ways that have not been possible in the past