Power differentials, context, relationship, and emotions: feminist ethics considerations and human subjects research

As increasing attention is paid to the ethical concerns raised by human subject research, more needs to be focused on issues usually not discussed in the research ethics literature. No longer is it sufficient to talk only about the conflicting goals of clinical care and clinical research. We need to delve more deeply into how human subjects studies are performed and examine the feminist ethics issues of power differentials, context, relationships, and emotions. The source of much of our moral discomfort with clinical trials frequently is in these components of the clinical research settings that are discussed less often.