Bioethics in the Margins – Details, episodes & analysis

We are so excited to have our very first librarian, Laureen Cantwell-Jurkovic, on the show to discuss the impact of and potential responses to the onslaught of book challenges and bans that have exponentially increased since 2022. Dr. Cantwell-Jurkovic is head of access services and outreach at Colorado Mesa University. She has researched and published on information literacy instruction and critical thinking activism. Amelia and Kirk explore with Dr. Cantwell-Jurkovic many consequences of book bans and challenges, which have increased more than 100-fold over the past several years, including "soft censorship" and self-censorship that result from the large administrative burden that results from responding to thousands of challenges, even when a particular book is ultimately not banned outright. Dr. Cantwell-Jurkovic walks us through how local activities at the level of school districts and municipalities ultimately influence policies at the county, state and even potentially national level. She emphasized the danger of these limitations which can come from people on all parts of the political spectrum. She then explored the unique properties of books, which have a special ability to build empathy through reading fiction, and Kirk explored how lack of access to books could have downstream effects when healthcare professionals are not exposed to diverse narratives as children. Finally, the importance of protecting libraries and books at the local level was highlighted.

Being a librarian, Dr. Cantwell-Jurkovic shared many resources with us. Some are included here and more will be available on our website in the show notes.

Organizations to Know:

American Library Association (ALA): www.ala.org

Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF): https://www.ftrf.org/

Data:

Banned Books Week data: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/book-ban-data

• About Banned Books: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/aboutbannedbooks
• Banned Books Week 2025: https://bannedbooksweek.org/

• ALA Censorship by the Numbers site: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/censorship-numbers
  • Preliminary data for 2024: https://www.ala.org/news/2024/09/american-library-association-reveals-preliminary-data-2024-book-challenges

We are back with season 7, chatting with Brian Tuohy, PhD, a sociologist of immigration and health, assistant professor of bioethics, and co-director of education at the Lewis Katz School of of Medicine at Temple University. We use the lens of immigrant health to delve into some deeper questions like "What does bioethics mean?" Dr. Tuohy generously shares his own personal and professional journey into the field, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics. He discusses his own family's immigration story and research with Mexican immigrants to the United States to bring out contrasts and nuances in the experiences of different groups based on language, age at immigration and a multiplicity of immigration status categories. We touch on some issues in ethical conduct of research with immigrant communities and conclude with a deep reflection on the power that bioethicists have as insiders in the healthcare industry and the importance, joys and responsibility of teaching the next generation of physicians.

Some of Dr. Tuohy's work can be found here:

Brian Tuohy, Health Without Papers: Immigrants, Citizenship, and Health in the 21st Century, Social Forces, Volume 98, Issue 3, March 2020, Pages 1052–1073, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soz048

Rocco, P., & Tuohy, B. (2021). A New Dawn of Bioethics: Advocacy and Social Justice. The American Journal of Bioethics, 22(1), 23–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2021.2001105

Tuohy B, Jatres J. Researching Those in the Shadows: Undocumented Immigrants, Vulnerability, and the Significance of Research. Am J Bioeth. 2023 Jun;23(6):106-109. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2023.2204053. PMID: 37220350.

Kirk and Amelia continue our discussion of Epistemic Injustice with Ryan Felder, PhD. Ryan is a Clinical Ethics Fellow at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. He earned his PhD in philosophy from the City University of New York in 2021. He shares his thoughts on the practical applications of Epistemic Injustice in clinical ethics consultation as well as how Epistemic Injustice relates to our understandings of cannabis efficacy and long COVID among other things. Ryan's other work can be found here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hast.1248.

Amelia and Kirk interview Jada Wiggleton-Little who is a PhD Candidate at UC San Diego working primarily in philosophy of mind, social epistemology, and clinical ethics. Ms. Wiggleton-Little unpacks her theory called pain-related motivational deficit. Pain-related motivational deficits occur when a self-reported pain is believed but fails to motivate concern because ideologies distort either features of the speaker in pain (e.g., obese people deserve their pain) or distorts the kind of pain being expressed (e.g., excruciating period pains are normal). To resist these oppressive distortions, patients often adopt performative strategies that cater to gender and racial expectations and the medical gaze. It is a way of reclaiming one's agency in the clinic, but it is also a laborious task for patients already suffering with chronic pain. Listen for practical solutions and find out what it would look like to be an epistemically humble clinician.

Listen to the whole team discussing the process of developing the Bioethics in the Margins podcast, where we've been on our podcast journey and where we hope to go. Amelia Barwise, Liz Chuang, Kirk Johnson and Nicolle Strand met each other in person for the first time ever this October in Portland, Oregon for the ASBH annual meeting. We heard some great ideas from attendees and had a lot of fun. Don't hesitate to tweet us @BEInTheMargins with your ideas for topics and guests.

In this episode, Kirk and Amanda interview Ander Etxeberria-Otadui, the head of Mondragon’s cooperative outreach program. Mr. Etxeberria shares the unique and fascinating history of the Mondragon Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation, as we discuss the impact of solidarity on health and wellbeing. Mr. Etxeberria explains the importance of synergy between solidarity-based and business-minded decision-making within the corporation. We explore the effects of income inequality on safety and mental and physical health of workers and communities.