•  18
    Better than well: American medicine meets the American dream, by Carl Elliot
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 1 (1): 185-188. 2008.
    Carl Elliot, Better than well: American medicine meets the American dream, New York: W.W. Norton, 2003, reviewed by Angela Thachuk
  •  39
    Stigma and the politics of biomedical models of mental illness
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 4 (1): 140-163. 2011.
    This paper offers a critical analysis of the strategic use of biomedical models of mental illness as a means of challenging stigma. Likening mental illnesses to physical illnesses reinforces notions that persons with mental illnesses are of a fundamentally “different kind,” entrenches misperceptions that they are inherently more violent, and promotes overreliance on diagnostic labeling and pharmaceutical treatments. I conclude that too much has been invested in the claim that the body is somehow…Read more
  •  15
    In North America, prenatal testing and genetic terminations are becoming clinically normalized. Yet despite this implied social acceptance, open discussions surrounding genetic terminations remain taboo and silenced. Women are socially isolated, their experiences kept secret, and their grief disenfranchised. The lack of social consensus regarding genetic terminations, the valorization of scientific knowledge, and the bioethical framing of the issue as a matter of personal choice and autonomy col…Read more
  •  31
    Queering Know-How: Clinical Skill Acquisition as Ethical Practice
    Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 12 (2): 331-341. 2015.
    Our study of queer women patients and their primary health care providers in Halifax, Nova Scotia, reveals a gap between providers’ theoretical knowledge of “cultural competency” and patients’ experience. Drawing on Patricia Benner’s Dreyfusian model of skill acquisition in nursing, we suggest that the dissonance between the anti-heteronormative principles expressed in interviews and the relative absence of skilled anti-heteronormative clinical practice can be understood as a failure to grasp th…Read more
  •  127
    Stigma and the Politics of Biomedical Models of Mental Illness
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 4 (1): 140-163. 2011.
    The word stigma comes from ancient Greece, and was initially used in reference to signs or symbols physically cut into or burned onto the bodies of those deemed to be of an inferior status. It was a marking of one's tarnished and flawed character. Today, stigma is more often attached to one's social standing, personality traits, or psychological makeup. "People are no longer physically branded; instead they are societally labeled—as poor, as criminal, homosexual, mentally ill, and so on. These l…Read more