Medicine and medicalization: A response to Purdy

Bioethics

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 262-269

  Garry, Ann ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ETHICS; FEMININITY; HEALTH CARE DELIVERY; INSTITUTIONAL CARE; MATERNAL WELFARE; MEDICAL PRACTICE; MEDICINE; SOCIAL ASPECT;

EID: 0035019651     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00236     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. An earlier draft of this paper was given in response to Laura Purdy's paper 'Medicalization, Medical Necessity and Feminist Medicine' during the Feminist Approaches to Bioethics section of the International Association of Bioethics Conference in London, September 2000. An anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments on a later draft.
2. Peter Conrad. Medicalization and Social Control. Annual Review of Sociology 1992; 18: 213-232; 211.
3. Other characterizations have explicitly incorporated the ever-expanding nature of medicalization (which implies more clearly a conceptual contrast); see Peter Conrad and J. Schneider. Looking at Levels of Medicalization: A Comment on Strong's Critique of the Thesis of Medical Imperialism. Social Science and Medicine 1980; 14A: 75-79, and Irving K. Zola. 1978. Medicine as an Institution of Social Control. In The Cultural Crisis of Modern Medicine. John Ehrenreich (ed.). New York. Monthly Review Press.
4. Other characterizations have explicitly incorporated the ever-expanding nature of medicalization (which implies more clearly a conceptual contrast); see Peter Conrad and J. Schneider. Looking at Levels of Medicalization: A Comment on Strong's Critique of the Thesis of Medical Imperialism. Social Science and Medicine 1980; 14A: 75-79, and Irving K. Zola. 1978. Medicine as an Institution of Social Control. In The Cultural Crisis of Modern Medicine. John Ehrenreich (ed.). New York. Monthly Review Press.
5. Kathryn Pauly Morgan. 1998. Contested Bodies, Contested Knowledges: Women, Health, and the Politics of Medicalization. In The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy. The Feminist Health Care Ethics Research Network (Susan Sherwin et al., eds.). Philadelphia. Temple University Press.
6. Purdy. Medicalization, Medical Necessity and Feminist Medicine, this copy of Bioethics, pp. 248-261.
7. See Purdy. op. cit. notes 13-22.
8. Consider how the contrasts might shift if one used another of the many possible meanings of 'natural': found in the physical universe outside the human species, very common, not artificial, free from human intervention, in accordance with something's purpose, or in accordance with the descriptive laws of nature.
9. See Purdy, op. cit. n. 14-16.
10. Morgan, op cit. 110. I replaced Morgan's 'access to medicalization' with 'access to medicine' in order to be consistent with my usage in this paper. In this literature 'medicalization' is sometimes used broadly (and, I think, misleadingly) to cover both medicine and medicalization.