RESUMEN
ABSTRACT The understanding that the drivers of inequities are multiple and intersecting is critical for health policy formulation and implementation. An intersectionality analysis reveals these relationships and allows a nuanced grasp of how health inequities are framed and understood. Using global statistics and other examples, the paper argues the significance of an intersectionality analysis in unravelling the disproportionate impact of inequity and the implications for the health and lives of persons experiencing these multiple discriminations. Attention to this, challenges the assumption of homogeneity and helps to visibilize lived realities. A few examples of acts of resistance are cited by the authors that have attempted to amplify the voices and knowledge of those whose realities are otherwise invisibilized by prevailing inequities, policies and discourses. 'Marginalizing' health thus implies an intersectional understanding of inequity as well as challenging and changing prevailing socio-political structures.
RESUMO O entendimento de que os fatores motivadores das desigualdades são múltiplos e se cruzam é fundamental para a formulação e para a implementação de políticas de saúde. Uma análise de interseccionalidade revela essas relações e permite uma compreensão diferenciada de como as iniquidades em saúde são estruturadas e compreendidas. Usando estatísticas globais e outros exemplos, o artigo argumenta a importância de uma análise de interseccionalidade para desvendar o impacto desproporcional da desigualdade e as implicações para a saúde e a vida das pessoas que sofrem essas múltiplas discriminações. Essa abordagem desafia o pressuposto de homogeneidade e ajuda a visibilizar as realidades vividas. Alguns exemplos de atos de resistência são citados pelos autores que tentaram ampliar as vozes e o conhecimento daqueles cujas realidades são, de outro modo, invisibilizadas pelas iniquidades, políticas e discursos predominantes. A 'marginalização' da saúde implica, portanto, um entendimento interseccional da desigualdade, assim como em enfrentar e mudar as estruturas sociopolíticas predominantes.
RESUMEN
ABSTRACT The understanding that the drivers of inequities are multiple and intersecting is critical for health policy formulation and implementation. An intersectionality analysis reveals these relationships and allows a nuanced grasp of how health inequities are framed and understood. Using global statistics and other examples, the paper argues the significance of an intersectionality analysis in unravelling the disproportionate impact of inequity and the implications for the health and lives of persons experiencing these multiple discriminations. Attention to this, challenges the assumption of homogeneity and helps to visibilize lived realities. A few examples of acts of resistance are cited by the authors that have attempted to amplify the voices and knowledge of those whose realities are otherwise invisibilized by prevailing inequities, policies and discourses. 'Marginalizing' health thus implies an intersectional understanding of inequity as well as challenging and changing prevailing socio-political structures.
RESUMO O entendimento de que os fatores motivadores das desigualdades são múltiplos e se cruzam é fundamental para a formulação e para a implementação de políticas de saúde. Uma análise de interseccionalidade revela essas relações e permite uma compreensão diferenciada de como as iniquidades em saúde são estruturadas e compreendidas. Usando estatísticas globais e outros exemplos, o artigo argumenta a importância de uma análise de interseccionalidade para desvendar o impacto desproporcional da desigualdade e as implicações para a saúde e a vida das pessoas que sofrem essas múltiplas discriminações. Essa abordagem desafia o pressuposto de homogeneidade e ajuda a visibilizar as realidades vividas. Alguns exemplos de atos de resistência são citados pelos autores que tentaram ampliar as vozes e o conhecimento daqueles cujas realidades são, de outro modo, invisibilizadas pelas iniquidades, políticas e discursos predominantes. A 'marginalização' da saúde implica, portanto, um entendimento interseccional da desigualdade, assim como em enfrentar e mudar as estruturas sociopolíticas predominantes.
RESUMEN
The theme of the joint 14th World Congress of Bioethics and 7th National Bioethics Conference Congress “Health for all in an unequal world: Obligations of global bioethics” is of critical relevance in the present global context. Although the world is better off in terms of improved health status of people by many measures than before, there exist colossal gaps across and within populations. Much needs to be done to respond to the lack of access to healthcare, poor quality of living and working conditions, and deteriorating quality of overall environment which affects more adversely the already deprived. We take this opportunity to make a few observations about the current status of affairs on this front, and offer brief analytical insights into the complex origins of the global health scenario characterised by disparities. We revisit the original conception of bioethics and suggest that it is well placed to respond to the current global crisis of inexorably widening disparities in health and wealth, and that global bioethics has an obligation to engage with this crisis.
RESUMEN
Galileo’s middle finger?! And how exactly is Galileo or his middle finger relevant to heretics, activists and social justice? The relic of Galileo’s middle finger, author Alice Dreger tells us, is preserved in Florence, Italy, placed pointing skywards – something which she has interpreted aptly and humorously as a message from Galileo, the heretic, to the world at large. Subsequently, this mummified member is perceived by the author as a personal talisman: are minder (albeit a mythical one) of Galileo “as a person who could see beyond his own needs”. She adds that it may “take a hundred years and a thousand people” to sort out who or what is right; that maybe the best that can be done at this time is to share the truth as you see it with all. Seeking the truth and justice at all costs is the central focus of this book however arduous that journey might be.
RESUMEN
The recent tragic and completely avoidable deaths of 13 women1 and the critical condition of many more following laparoscopic sterilisation in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, signals that nothing has really changed in India’s family planning programme over the past several decades. The manner in which the surgeries were performed, in complete violation of all standard operating procedures and ethical norms, amounts to grave violation of the very basic health rights of the affected women. In addition, it points to the callous and biased attitudes towards poor women that persist among health functionaries and policy-makers, and the tenacious hold of the “targets” approach in the family planning programme despite statements to the contrary.