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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):
➤ bioethics and medical humanities through social justice • structural racism, intersectionality, disability/LGBTQ ethics • immigrant/refugee rights, sanctuary, detention, institutional protections • gun violence, policing, carceral health, capital punishment • reproductive justice, genetics, public health, disaster policy, organizational ethicsThis podcast brings together bioethics scholars and guests to examine health, medicine, and the medical humanities through frameworks centered on equity, restitution, and structural change. Across conversations, the show emphasizes how ethical questions in healthcare often cannot be understood only at the level of individual choice or bedside dilemmas; instead, it foregrounds how policy, institutions, law, and political economy shape who is protected, who is harmed, and whose experiences are treated as credible.
A recurring focus is the ethical analysis of structural inequities affecting marginalized communities, including the impacts of racism, ableism, colonial histories, and immigration enforcement on health and access to care. The podcast repeatedly engages with immigrant and refugee health, discussing how hospitals, schools, and faith communities respond to enforcement practices, what “safe zones” mean in practice, and how legal tools and institutional planning can protect patients and students. Related episodes explore partnerships between healthcare and legal advocates, and the responsibilities of clinicians and ethicists as insiders in health systems.
The show also examines bioethics’ relationship to public policy and public institutions, including disaster response and the use of mapping and data infrastructure, as well as debates over censorship and book bans as issues with downstream effects on empathy, education, and professional formation. Other discussions address violence and the carceral state—such as firearm injury as a public health problem, police use of force and medicalized labels, mental health care in jails, and ethical concerns in capital punishment—highlighting the intersections of medicine, law, and state power.
Scientific and technological topics appear through a justice-oriented lens, including genetics and biobanking, community engagement and consent, antimicrobial resistance and “One Health” interdependence, privacy and surveillance, and reproductive justice (including the experiences of Black women with sickle cell disease and the policy effects of restrictions on abortion). Throughout, guests reflect on how bioethics as a field is changing: its methods, its claimed neutrality, its diversity and training pathways, and emerging calls to organize the discipline around social justice obligations and institutional accountability.