Sarah Banks

ABSTRACT This case study focuses on some of the ethical issues that arise in community-based participatory research, drawing on an example from practice in the UK. It comprises a case example written by a community researcher, followed by two commentaries, which analyse the case and offer different perspectives on the issues raised from the commentators' experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. The case example highlights the challenges faced by volunteer action researchers undertaking research interviews and mentoring on sensitive topics in their local neighbourhoods. It raises questions about: the emotional effects of discussing matters of mental health, well-being and money management on both researchers and research participants; how much researchers should disclose about their own lives; and the nature of the support needs of volunteer community researchers.

... Please update your bookmarks. Regenerating Neighbourhoods: A Critical Look at the Role of Community Capacity Building. Shenton, Sarah Banks, Felicity. Local Economy, 2001, vol. ... Access Statistics for this article. Local Economy is edited by Peter North and Stuart Wilks-Heeg ...

ABSTRACT This case study focuses on some of the ethical issues that arise in community-based participatory research, drawing on an example from practice in the UK. It comprises a case example written by a community researcher, followed by two commentaries, which analyse the case and offer different perspectives on the issues raised from the commentators' experiences in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. The case example highlights the challenges faced by volunteer action researchers undertaking research interviews and mentoring on sensitive topics in their local neighbourhoods. It raises questions about: the emotional effects of discussing matters of mental health, well-being and money management on both researchers and research participants; how much researchers should disclose about their own lives; and the nature of the support needs of volunteer community researchers.

In this paper we explore lay people's discussions of the controversial topic of social sex selection (SSS). In the UK and many other countries, SSS is prohibited by law. In 2003 the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, after an extensive public consultation, decided against changing the existing legislation. However, this initiative and similar consultation exercises have been criticised on the grounds that public opinion is poorly informed and reasoned. In our study, one of the most consistently expressed ideas was that children should be regarded as ‘a gift’ rather than ‘a commodity’. In contrast, the ‘gift not a commodity’ argument is rarely cited positively in Anglo-American, secular-liberal bioethics. These metaphorical statements are condensed articulations of complex but coherent moral intuitions. Where much of the bioethics literature stresses parental autonomy, our lay discussants balanced this principle with ideas about the need to respect the personhood of the potential child, and the characteristics of a good parent. We conclude our analysis by considering the implications for expanding bioethics’ knowledge base and improving the input of lay people in bioethical decision making.

Assisted reproductive technologies are typically positioned as increasing the range of choices open to the healthcare consumer, thereby enhancing 'reproductive freedom'. In this paper, we question the equivalence of reproductive choice and personal freedom in ethical theory, using results from a project investigating how lay people make ethical evaluations about the new genetic and reproductive technologies. We took the topic of social sex selection by preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and used group discussions and interviews in the north-east of England to trace how lay people develop and express their ethical evaluations, and to identify the implicit or explicit normative framework that gave rise to their opinions on prenatal sex selection. There was a striking level of ambivalence towards choice in general and reproductive choice in particular. Participants offered few positive statements and numerous reasons why reproductive choice might be problematic. Our participants' argumentation shares with mainstream bioethical analysis the weighing of the possible harms of prenatal sex selection for social reasons against the harm of restricting reproductive freedom. However, unlike most secular-liberal bioethicists, many of our participants concluded that prenatal sex selection is undesirable because it is an expression of parental preference instead of a response to the future child's need. Our interpretation of their reasoning is that they work from an ideal of "good parents", one of the features of which is the relinquishing of control over their children, except to protect them from harm. This voluntary self-limitation does not indicate reduced autonomy, because parental autonomy can only operate within the limits set by this relational framework. We suggest that a model of relational autonomy captures our lay participants' framing of the problem better than a more traditional understanding of autonomy. Our study also shows that in appropriately structured discussion of bioethical issues, lay people can articulate reasons for their opinions that are grounded in sophisticated and morally relevant concepts.