On Thursday, September 25, at 6:00 pm in the Harkin Institute (2800 University Ave), Dr. Devan Stahl, Associate Professor of Bioethics and Religion at Baylor University, will lecture on “The Protestant Work Ethics, Eugenics, and Quality of Life Measures.”
For those wishing to attend the lecture virtually, please sign on here at least five minutes in advance: https://drake-edu.zoom.us/j/81656501933.
Modern medicine is committed to maintaining and enhancing patients’ quality of life, but what exactly is meant by the term “quality of life” can be ambiguous and can sometimes work to the detriment of people with disabilities. What constitutes a high or low quality of life, who determines the quality of life, and how such judgments should be used in medicine are all contested questions. How clinicians understand quality of life has profound implications for all people who use health care; however, it is of particular importance to people with disabilities who are often assumed, against evidence to the contrary, to have a low quality of life and therefore to be less deserving of access to scarce medical resources.
This presentation will explore the conceptual roots of quality of life judgments in medicine with a particular focus on the influence of religion, particularly American Protestantism, in shaping our views of what makes a life valuable and worth living. Drawing upon her research in her book Disability’s Challenge to Theology: Genes, Eugenics, and the Metaphysics of Modern Medicine, Dr. Devan Stahl will explore how the Protestant approaches to Scripture and nature helped to produce not only the Scientific Revolution, but also the American eugenics movement. In the early 20th century, many liberal Protestants were eager to bring about the Kingdom of God by aligning themselves with medical scientists who wished to rid society of people who were determined to be “unfit” based upon their ideas of what made for a good and upright citizen. Although eugenics was condemned in the mid-twentieth century after the atrocities of Nazi Germany were exposed, notions of what it means to be “fit” remain and have implications for the practices of contemporary medicine.
Devan Stahl is an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Religion at Baylor University and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Innovation, and Technology at the Baylor College of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Health Care Ethics from St. Louis University and her M.Div. from Vanderbilt University. She specializes in theological bioethics, disability ethics, and the visual arts within medicine. Dr. Stahl also volunteers as a clinical ethicist consultant for the Supportive and Palliative Care Team at Baylor, Scott, and White Hillcrest and has trained as a hospital chaplain. Dr. Stahl is the cohost of the popular podcast Bioethics for the People, now in its sixth season. She is the author and editor of several book including, Imaging and Imagining Illness: Becoming Whole in a Broken Body (Cascade Books), Disability’s Challenge to Theology: Genes, Eugenics, and the Metaphysics of Modern Medicine (Notre Dame Press), and Bioenhancement Technology and the Vulnerable Body: A Theological Engagement.
Below please find a recording of Prof. Stahl’s presentation