Patient-centred ethics, the Cartwright Inquiry and feminism: Identifying the central fallacy in Linda Bryder, A History of the 'Unfortunate Experiment at National Women's Hospital (2009, 2010)

Headnote

Abstract

The Cartwright Report was published by the New Zealand government in 1988. It presented the findings and recommendations of a judicial inquiry into allegations that women with cervical carcinoma in situ had been untreated or under-treated in the course of medical research at national Women's Hospital. The allegations arose in an article called 'An Un fortunate experiment at National Women's Hospital' authored by Phillida Bunkle and Sandra Coney. The recommendations included through reform of medical and research ethics. These popular reforms are usually regarded as feminist achievements and significant ethical millstones.

A book by Professor Linda Bryder published internationally in 2009 and 2010 questions the reality of the 'experiment', the findings of the Cartwright inquiry and argues that the recommendations made little contribution to changes already underway within medicine.

This article draws on the records of the inquiry, particularly the case histories of the women involved to refute Linda Bryder's arguments.

Summary

This article calls upon my personal recollections and documentary evidence to argue that Professor Linda Bryder's anti-feminist bias means that her book A History of the 'Unfortunate Experiment at National Women's Hospital (2009, 2010), is built upon a series of errors and so misrepresents the history of the Unfortunate Experiment.

Academic discussion of this book has presented the key issues as an intra-medical debate (Manning, 2009) between those who believe like Bryder that Green purveyed standard treatment and those who regarded Green as an incompetent doctor who had to be exposed. Concluding this debate in this way reinforces the idea that medical reform concerns the internal morality of the medical profession rather than external accountability of the medical system to patients (Paul, 2000). Such a perspective has minimised the feminist voice and obscured the extent to which the Inquiry and subsequent reforms grew from the analysis developed by the Women's Health Movement which was focused on systematically safeguarding physical safety premised upon respect for the ethical autonomy of patients.

Bryder suggests that Cartwright's recommendations came about from personal influence of Sandra Coney and myself upon the judge, sometimes implying a semi clandestine connection (Bryder 2009, 2010; 2010, June). In fact the only time I meet the judge was at a function one year after the Report was published, and do...