The Possibility of Care: Medical Ethics and the Death of Steve Biko

Abstract

This article analyzes the debates surrounding the inadequate medical care reportedly offered to Steve Biko during the final weeks of his life in 1977. For the past three decades, medical ethicists have used the so-called ‘Biko Case’ to define the ethical obligations of medical practitioners who operate under systems of authoritarian rule. This evaluation of Biko’s death has reduced the history of apartheid to a narrative of political repression. This article argues that this process of clarifying ethical medical practices through a contrast with repressive power fails to account for the ways in which medical care itself acts as a form of power. In other words, a narrow focus on the effects of repressive power provides an insufficient strategy for evaluating both the history of Steve Biko’s death and of apartheid power more broadly.