title: Nursing, obedience, and complicity with eugenics: a contextual interpretation of nursing morality at the turn of the twentieth century.
abstract: This paper uses Margaret Urban Walker's "expressive collaborative" method of moral inquiry to examine and illustrate the morality of nurses in Great Britain from around 1860 to 1915, as well as nursing complicity in one of the first eugenic policies. The authors aim to focus on how context shapes and limits morality and agency in nurses and contributes to a better understanding of debates in nursing ethics both in the past and present.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Catholic University of Leuven, Kapucijnenvoer 35, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. Chris.Gastmans@med.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berghs
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dierckx de Casterlé
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gastmans
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002835:Christianity / Q000266:history; D002983:Clinical Competence; D004291:Dominance-Subordination; D004993:Ethics, Nursing / Q000266:history*; D005053:Eugenics / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007326:Institutionalization / Q000266:history; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history / Q000451:nursing; D009014:Morals; D009742:Nursing Theory; D019555:Physician-Nurse Relations; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D012941:Social Responsibility; D006113:United Kingdom