Overview

"In deciding the abortion and physician assisted suicide cases, a majority of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court drew on medical knowledge to inform their opinions while dismissing the distinctively different knowledge offered by patients. Following the legal norms derived from the ethic of justice, the Court's deference towards the ""universal"", ""impartial"", and ""reasoned"" knowledge of the medical profession and its disregard of the ""particular"", ""involved"" and ""emotional"" knowledge of patients seemed inevitable as well as justified. But was it? This book argues that it is both possible and proper to develop a jurisprudence capable of incorporating the knowledge of patients. Drawing on feminist scholarship, this book proposes a model for a ""caring jurisprudence"" that integrates the ethics of justice and the ethic of care to ensure that patients' knowledge is included in judicial decision making."

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9780847694549

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Reviews

This careful, thoughtful, and moving account of the Supreme Court's privacy cases should be of great interest to scholars in all disciplines interested in the Court and of the ideals and practices that guide it. Behuniak's book is a plea to judges at all levels to listen empathically to patients' knowledge and to integrate that knowledge into a more caring jurisprudence. She convincingly traces the inhumane consequences, in our law and in our ideals for law, of their failure, to date, to do so.--West, Robin

Author Information

Susan M. Behuniak is professor of political science at Le Moyne College.

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