Feminist care-ethics makes a difference when analysing and discussing healthcare issues. As a specific moral perspective it frames moral questions in healthcare in terms of responsibilities and is concerned more about the dangers of abandonment than the dangers of interference. The care perspective also invites us to re-examine and re-evaluate current conceptions of autonomy and moral relationships. In this chapter I shall try to show that care-ethics, as a relational ethics, makes a difference in the moral reading of problems arising in the use of genetics. In arguing this, I will start by presenting the main characteristics of care-ethics. I will then go on to discuss the issue of whether care-ethics can be seen as a feminist ethical perspective. In the final part of the chapter I will show how care ethics can make a difference to the discussion of ethical issues in genetics. In particular, I shall concentrate on the tension between responsibility toward others and the value of personal autonomy.

Care ethics

In 1982, Carol Gilligan published In a Different Voice, in which she put forward the thesis that a so-called ethics of justice gives only a partial voice to the moral experiences of men and especially of women. An ethics of justice, needs to be complemented by an ethics of care that is capable of articulating the moral values of nurturing and caring. In developing this care perspective Gilligan challenged the idea that abstract and universalistic moral reasoning was the best way of thinking about moral problems.