ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the central argument of the book and highlights the distinctive value of the virtue-based defense within biomedical ethics. The primary aim of this chapter, however, is to identify and address some of the chief barriers to the promotion and provision of perinatal palliative and hospice care within contemporary care settings. Section II contrasts the virtue-based defense of perinatal hospice with extant views, emphasizing how it differs from defenses rooted in concerns for (i) moral status, (ii) reproductive autonomy, or (iii) supportive medical care. Section III identifies and describes barriers that may hinder the reforms crucial to the promotion and provision of these forms of care. Specifically, it focuses on the lack of awareness concerning its basic structures, funding barriers and economic disincentives, the politicization of perinatal hospice in debates concerning abortion, and attitudinal commitments concerning the burdens associated with suffering and disability. Section IV concludes with an extended reflection on the goods enacted through perinatal hospice. Drawing on the author’s personal experience, it points to these goods as a foundation justifying the pursuit of structural reform and a reason to hope that such reforms are realizable.
