Medical Sexism

Doctors routinely deny patients access to hormonal birth control prescription refills, and this issue has broad interest for feminism, biomedical ethics, and applied ethics in general. Medical Sexism argues that such practices violate a variety of legal and moral standards, including medical malpractice, informed consent, and human rights. Jill B. Delston makes the case that medical sexism serves as a major underlying cause of these systemic and persistent violations. Delston also considers other common abuses in the medical field, such as policy on abortion access and treatment in childbirth. Delston argues that sexism is a better explanation for the widespread abuse of patient autonomy in reproductive health and health care generally. Identifying, addressing, and rooting out medical sexism is necessary to successfully protect medical and moral values.
Why do some doctors routinely deny birth control refills without additional tests, and why do some doctors disrespect patient autonomy in decisions about abortions, labor and delivery, organ transplants, and more? This book argues that medical sexism is a major cause of this pervasive mistreatment.
Jill B. Delston's Medical Sexism: Contraception Access, Reproductive Medicine, and Health Care offers an empirically and philosophically formidable affirmation of what many patients have long known or suspected: a hierarchy of maleness or masculinity over femaleness or femininity is regularly reinforced in US medical contexts. ... This meticulously argued monograph shows that medical sexism is a serious systemic problem which entails harms and rights violations specific to patients who are (or have attributes associated with) women. Certainly, this text will appeal to readers with an interest in feminist philosophy, especially feminist bioethics. Delston's book could do considerable good if put in the hands of health care providers, medical policy makers, and those who aspire to become either. This would be a profoundly eye-opening read for people who have never and will never themselves be under the care of an OB/GYN. This book can help equip patients and patient advocates to push back rather than capitulate when met with such reactions. For those who have experienced medical sexism firsthand, a reading of this outstanding book ought to underscore one fact above all: you deserve better. We all deserve better.--Essays in Philosophy
As argued by Delston (Univ. of Missouri-St. Louis), wherever women seek contraception, systemic roadblocks and pervasive social barriers abound. This text examines the ways paternalistic values, and physicians holding them, block access to contraception by requiring costly and unnecessary pelvic exams, Pap smears, and other tests. Forced pregnancy care, policing of pregnancy, and obstetric violence are also considered. Although limiting contraceptive access is not standard practice in medicine, practitioners may not know or follow guidelines. To respect patient autonomy, ethical practice recommends providing free, universal access to reversible, long-lasting contraception. Delston provides vignettes to illustrate how systemic denial of contraception and abortion impose medical and moral harm on patients and the moral concerns that arise when pelvic exams are conducted, sometimes on unconscious patients, without informed consent. She further maintains that medical sexism is behind limiting access of trans patients to contraception and blocking women from participating in research trials, and that it also explains why clinical guidelines for mammography are ignored. Delston warns that such treatment infantilizes and violates women. As she acknowledges, screening has benefits, but if used to deny or delay access to contraception, it can harm women. This is an essential handbook for providers, historians, patient advocates, and health care faculty. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.--CHOICE
Medical Sexism: Contraception Access, Reproductive Medicine, and Health Care argues that medical sexism is rampant, not only in reproductive health care, but also in health care more generally. Beginning with the case of mandatory Pap tests and pelvic exams for birth control prescriptions, Jill Delston documents the ways that medical professionals mistreat and infantilize women and violate their autonomy due to sexism. Her meticulously researched, carefully argued, and well-written book is an outstanding original contribution to medical ethics and to feminist thought. In addition to students and scholars in those fields, Professor Delston's book should be required reading for anyone entering the field of health care as well as medical policy makers.--Ann Cudd, University of Pittsburgh
This exceptional, original, and comprehensive study of systemic sexism in the medical field centers on the medical treatment of birth control. Delston makes the case that doctors routinely deny access to hormonal birth control to many patients. She then develops the broader implications of this finding, with brilliant attention to issues such as accountability and intersectionality. Delston's morality-centered analysis provides a nuanced focus on the key moral concepts of autonomy, paternalism, and informed consent. The crucial roles of class, race, and eugenics are also detailed with precision.--Marilyn Friedman, Vanderbilt University