Medicine and Ethics in Black Women''s Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction often shows the complicated and rather fraught history of medicine as it relates to black women. Through prominent writers like Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nalo Hopkinson, Jones highlights how personal experiences of illness and disease frequently reflect larger societal sicknesses in connection to race and gender.

Through the transgressive works of prominent writers like Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nalo Hopkinson, Medicine and Ethics in Black Women''s Speculative Fiction explores the fraught history of medicine as it relates to black women and the inconsistent application of medical ethics in today''s world. As Jones argues, black female speculative authors connect representations of personal illness to much larger societal sicknesses, shedding light on the ethical issues on topics like militarized rape, children born of war, female circumcision, organ donation, mental illness, and disability. These authors come to reveal the vital role that religion plays for black women in countering such problematic medical ethics, presenting them with alternative ethical paradigms that challenge the construction of black women and girls as "pathological." In so doing, black feminist speculation enters the larger tradition of community-building and advocacy in black women''s fiction writing, scholarship, and activism.