Browsing by Author "Laws, Terri"

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    At the Cross-Roads: African American Spirituality, Clinical Trials, and Patient-Subject Decision-Making
    (2015-04-24) Laws, Terri; Pinn, Anthony B.; Bongmba, Elias K.; Howard Ecklund, Elaine
    Published assessments of religion and health scholarship observe the substantial need for the study of African American spirituality, and that what is available has implicated this cultural production as helpful and supportive of good health yet inhibitive in end-of-life decision making. This qualitative study from semi-structured interviews with African American prostate cancer patients finds spirituality as helpful to sustaining patients in their decisions to risk medical research although patients determine their decision to accept risk based on their understanding of the medical science presented to them. They are comforted by the agency available to them through bioethical principles and practices, most notably, informed consent. The findings of this study contest the centrality of the Tuskegee narrative popularly believed to be inhibitive to African American clinical trial participation as well as the over-simplification of the relationship between religion and African Americans’ cancer fatalism widely held among members of the health professions. The study acknowledges that structural issues prevent too many African Americans from access to the option of clinical trial participation. Two constructs are offered: a cultural sociological approach (Jeffrey Alexander; Gordon Lynch) to re-imagining Tuskegee as a sacred rhetoric, and a sociological approach to risk acceptance and risk taking referencing institutionalized religion; both constructs are derived from Durkheimian theory. These solutions are offered as responses to the data that emerged through the qualitative research and existing treatments of religion and health in African American religious scholarship. This study suggests that there is a shifting paradigm in which more African Americans will merge their spirituality with scientific knowledge to increase medical research participation with the long term aim of reducing health disparities. In turn, additional theoretical frameworks will emerge beyond the closed loop epistemology inherent in Durkheim’s theory. The research agenda begun here points to implications for theory and practice in fields including African American Religions, pastoral theology, health policy, health services, and bioethics.
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    ‘Making Babies': Religion and Moral Diversity in Views on Abortion and Human Genetic Engineering
    (Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2013) Laws, Terri; Emerson, Michael O.; Wadsworth, W. Duncan
    This white paper using PALS data discusses how race, gender, and frequency of attendance at worship services can impact attitudes about the morality of abortion, the use of genetic engineering to guide child characteristics as well as the basis for moral views. The majority of whites and Hispanics say they base their moral views on their personal conscience. The majority of African Americans, however, say that they base their moral views on God’s law. Attitudes about the morality of abortion are influenced by frequency of religious worship. Respondents who said they attend worship services two or more times per month are most likely to believe that abortion ought to be restricted. Women were more likely than men to say that using human engineering to make a smarter baby is “always wrong.” This paper suggests that moral diversity and diverse moral messaging remain important aspects of American life. Furthermore, for some communities, religious messaging has a clear impact on their attitudes about the use of medical technologies. These influences are important to take into account in public policy debates such as accessibility to and funding for medical research.