Medical students commonly learn how to administer pelvic exams by practicing on unconscious patients, often without first obtaining explicit consent from patients to do so. While twenty-one states currently have laws that require teaching hospitals to obtain consent from patients to participate in this educational experience, opposition from the medical community has stymied legislative progress. In this paper, I respond to the two most common reasons offered to oppose legislation, which appeal to (1) the educational benefits of these exams, or (2) protecting institutional autonomy. Kantian ideas about autonomy help to illuminate the problematic ways in which these arguments supplant the importance of women's choices over how their bodies are used while seeking medical treatment. Ultimately, neither argument offers sufficient reason to oppose laws that require explicit consent before administering training pelvic exams.
This article provides a systematic analysis of the Disney Renaissance films’ narrative tropes as a way to discern the particular social world they collectively depict and promote. Taking these popular cinematic productions as expressions of their authors’ and artistic creators’ world views, it argues that they all effectively legitimize a particular American ethos conventionally and frequently equated with the ‘happy ever after’ life ideal of the United States’ white, Christian middle and upper classes of the post-World War II era. Ultimately, based on the textual analysis of these films, the article urges us to consider the cultural and social implications of these narratives, particularly in light of their global distribution and the narrow world view they promote and legitimize.
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