Bioethics, Art, and Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: An Impressionistic Discussion Aiming to Rehabilitate Taboo Bodies and Blamed Ovaries

Abstract

Bioethics pushes human beings to confront and take responsibility for the problems they have created, while art inspires a re-enchantment in order to give a different meaning to what has become mechanical and technoscientific world. Health is not exempt from this rigid world view, and related beliefs are often presented in a paradigmatic and absurd fashion where health becomes the object of a biomedicine’s instrumental and scientific rationality. Following this contextualization, it becomes easier to understand the frustrating journey described by women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in the context of healthcare. Biomedicine conceives PCOS as biological and individual, neglecting the contribution of a more global perspective. In contrast to biomedicine, preventive approaches that seek to improve health status and not simply treat the disease offer a more holistic perspective of care. In this context, art is conceived as a unique way to remember forgotten values: a more humane and greater sensitivity, a relation to health that is respectful of life, a creativity in caring. The process becomes a moral and beautiful gesture that is not an appeal to fight against evil, but to take care of health with love and peace, while opening up new opportunities to improve the quality of life of these women and so produce a greater good.