Testimonial injustice: discounting women’s voices in health care priority setting

• Published in: Journal of medical ethics Vol. 47; no. 11; pp. 744 - 747
• Main Authors: Gallagher, Siun, Little, John Miles, Hooker, Claire
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics 01.11.2021; BMJ Publishing Group LTD
• Subjects: allocation of healthcare resources; applied and professional ethics; Bias; Bioethics; Credibility; Decision making; distributive justice; Epistemology; ethics; Health care policy; Injustice; Knowledge; Medical ethics; Medicine; Original research; Prejudice; Priorities; Social identity; women; Womens health; Australia; applied and professional ethics; distributive justice; allocation of healthcare resources; ethics; women
• ISSN: 0306-6800; 1473-4257
• DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2019-105984

Testimonial injustice occurs when bias against the credibility of certain social identities results in discounting of their contributions to deliberations. In this analysis, we describe testimonial injustice against women and how it figures in macroallocation procedure. We show how it harms women as deliberators, undermines the objective of inclusivity in macroallocation and affects the justice of resource distributions. We suggest that remedial action is warranted in order to limit the effects of testimonial injustice in this context, especially on marginalised and disadvantaged groups, and propose three areas for action, whose implementation might feasibly be achieved by those immediately involved in macroallocation.