Ethical issues and challenges in bioethics education from a gender perspective

In this paper I argue that attention for sex and gender should be included as an important element in medical ethics and bioethics education. What is the added value of a gender perspective? There is an epistemological basis (how knowledge is created) as well as an ethical basis (gender justice and equity) for this argument. Gender relations are major defining features of science and technology and their social organization in terms of who does science, how it is organized and how knowledge is constructed. A gender perspective can help to elucidate specific relations of power, opportunity, and resource distribution in the practice of science. Gender is an important dimension in research ethics and in clinical ethics. Gendered power relations pose several challenges in clinical situations where patient autonomy and informed consent are considered salient ethical principles. Gender interacts with health and illness on many dimensions that, in addition to sex differences, produce different outcomes for males and females. Attention for sex and gender are essential to all the processes of medical research, ultimately for patient benefit, and to improve the quality of health care for all. My insights are derived from secondary sources as well as own empirical research on the application of reprogenetic technologies in India.