Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
Who we are: We are a collaborative of bioethics scholars interested in creating a more inclusive space to explore topics relevant to bioethics and the medical humanities while advancing equity and social change/restitution. Although we found our shared interests through our membership in the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Race Affinity Group, we are independent of ASBH and any other organization. The views expressed in this podcast are our own and the speakers and do not represent our employers, institutions, or professional societies. Mission: Bioethics in the Margins aims to include topics, guests and audiences who are not always highlighted in mainstream bioethics discourse. We will focus on structural inequity and the role bioethics can play in social change. We aim to move beyond traditional bioethics frameworks and intentionally draw on intersectionality, social justice, racial justice, disability ethics, women, LGBTQ ethics, and topics specific to Black, immigrant/refugee, Native American, Latinx populations.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Social-justice–oriented bioethics • Structural racism, capitalism, commercial determinants of health • Immigrant/refugee health, sanctuary, ICE policy • Reproductive justice, Black maternal health, genetics • Gun violence, policing, carceral ethics • Disability/dignity, homelessness • Organizational ethics, disaster/climate response, censorship/book bansThis podcast explores bioethics through an explicitly equity-oriented lens, emphasizing voices and topics that are often marginalized in mainstream medical ethics and health humanities. Across conversations with bioethicists, clinicians, public health scholars, lawyers, faith leaders, social scientists, journalists, and community-engaged experts, the show foregrounds how structural forces shape health, clinical practice, and research ethics.
A recurring focus is the ethics of institutions and systems rather than individual bedside dilemmas. Discussions examine how capitalism, corporate influence, nonprofit healthcare incentives, philanthropy, and public policy function as determinants of health, and what it means for bioethics to engage power, political economy, and social movements. The podcast also returns frequently to immigration and refugee justice, including the responsibilities of healthcare and educational institutions, the role of sanctuary spaces and religious freedom, and practical strategies and legal-ethical tools for protecting patients and communities.
Many episodes address racism and intersecting forms of oppression in medicine and public health, drawing on frameworks such as critical race theory, intersectionality, disability justice, and reproductive justice. Topics include inequities in clinical communication and critical care decision-making, histories of racial science and medical education, violence and policing as public health problems, and the ethical stakes of censorship and book bans for civic life and professional formation. The show also engages ethically complex areas of science and technology—such as genomics, biobanking consent, surveillance/privacy, and One Health—highlighting community engagement and deliberative democracy.
Overall, this podcast situates bioethics as a field implicated in structural inequities and asks what ethical analysis, professional responsibility, and organizing might look like when centered on justice and restitution.