No Longer “Handmaiden”: The Role of Social and Sociological Theory in Bioethics

Whether sociology should be part of bioethics has been extensively debated and critiqued. Feminist bioethics has long recognized the role of empirical work in bioethical inquiry; however, much feminist work in bioethics has been sidelined due to critiques of the role of social and sociological theory in bioethics research. In this essay, I examine how sociology plays a much deeper role in bioethical inquiry beyond the contribution of empirical methods. Building on these approaches, I show, through a case study, how social and sociological theory play as vital a role in conducting comprehensive bioethical inquiry as sociological methods and methodology, and thus should no longer be sidelined in empirical bioethics.