Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
2.2 Vulnerability
It is easy to agree that the characters in Never Let Me Go are vulnerable. 1 They are
(cloned) children, later young adults, with no family, who are raised in institutions for
the harvesting of their organs, one by one, until they die. However, agreeing on a defi-
nition of 'vulnerability' is not so straightforward. The two major problems as outlined
in the academic literature, are, first, that the concept is vague and therefore lacks the
specificity that an adequate definition requires, 2 and, second, that 'vulnerability' has
been given increasingly broad interpretations over the years (Forster et al. 2001 ).
There is a sense in which all humans are vulnerable. None of us could survive
as an infant without care, or in the desert without water. As Nancy Jecker notes:
'All persons are made of “flesh” not steel' (Jecker 2004 , p. 60). However, in the
context of scientific research involving human beings we need a narrower con-
cept of vulnerability if it is to do any work in protecting research participants from
exploitation.
The bioethicist Samia Hurst has compiled a list of cited examples of vulner-
able groups in research from five sets of international guidelines for research eth-
ics. Adjusting the list using the latest Declaration of Helsinki (2008), the examples
include racial minorities, the economically disadvantaged, the very sick, the insti-
tutionalized, children, prisoners, pregnant women and fetuses, incompetent per-
sons, persons susceptible to coercion or undue influence, junior or subordinate
members of a hierarchical group (including medical and nursing students, subor-
dinate hospital and laboratory personnel, employees of pharmaceutical companies,
and members of the armed forces or police), elderly persons, residents of nurs-
ing homes, people receiving welfare benefits or social assistance and other poor
people, the unemployed, patients in emergency rooms, homeless persons, nomads,
refugees or displaced persons, patients with incurable diseases, individuals who
are politically powerless, members of communities unfamiliar with modern medi-
cal concepts, and patients in emergency situations (Hurst 2008 , p. 193).
There are concerns that these attempts to specify vulnerable groups in detail
represents a possible over-extension of vulnerability which could lead, in the end,
to no one qualifying for more protection than anyone else.
In this section we will suggest ways of addressing both the vagueness and
the over-extension problem of vulnerability. In response to the first problem, we
will provide a definition of 'vulnerability' in the context of scientific research. In
response to the second, we will consider the conditions of vulnerability, in order to
give a more precise description of the concept's application and extension in the
context of human research.
The general meaning of the word 'vulnerability', as one finds it in dictionar-
ies, is to be exposed to the risk of physical or emotional harm. Typical dictionary
1 This section is based on Schroeder and Gefenas ( 2009 ).
2 For examples of this complaint see, among others, Kipnis ( 2001 ), Ruof ( 2004 ), Levine et al.
( 2004 ), Rogers ( 1997 ), Shi ( 2001 ), Hurst ( 2008 ).
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