Tenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

In Chile, projects on abortion and euthanasia have been and are being debated, with health discourses being relevant, such as discourses of knowledge/power. My presentation responds to the question: from a gender perspective, what are the discourses of health, of the personnel of the gynecology and obstetrics units, ethics committee and palliative care, of the health system of Santiago de Chile, in the debate of life and death associated with abortion and euthanasia in Chile? I investigated the issues in an integrated way, to unveil the debates on life and death, connected to dignity, the human, autonomy, suffering and pain, and constructions of corporeality. From feminist epistemologies, I adopted a qualitative strategy, conducting in-depth interviews with health professionals (26 interviews), from a religious private clinic, a non-religious private clinic, and a hospital, in Santiago de Chile. Although there are dichotomous positions on abortion and euthanasia, under the arguments of the sacredness of life and autonomy of bodies, the argumentative plot is denser, revealing the political use of positions, ways of seeing society, its ethics, power relations, as well as conceptions of life and death in a Western, patriarchal, neoliberal and capitalist context. Thus, I observed different modes of autonomy: a liberal one (linked to the ethics of justice and a hegemonic masculinity) and relational visions (associated with an ethics of care and a hegemonic femininity). Also, among other elements, the discourses gave an account of the dichotomy between life and death, separately, and always the former better than the latter.