RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 What makes a medical intervention invasive?
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP jme-2023-109301
DO 10.1136/jme-2023-109301
A1 Gabriel De Marco
A1 Jannieke Simons
A1 Lisa Forsberg
A1 Thomas Douglas
YR 2023
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2023/09/18/jme-2023-109301.abstract
AB The classification of medical interventions as either invasive or non-invasive is commonly regarded to be morally important. On the most commonly endorsed account of invasiveness, a medical intervention is invasive if and only if it involves either breaking the skin (‘incision’) or inserting an object into the body (‘insertion’). Building on recent discussions of the concept of invasiveness, we show that this standard account fails to capture three aspects of existing usage of the concept of invasiveness in relation to medical interventions—namely, (1) usage implying that invasiveness comes in degrees, (2) that the invasiveness of an intervention can depend on the characteristics of the salient alternative interventions, and (3) that medical interventions can be invasive in non-physical ways. We then offer the beginnings of a revised account that, we argue, is able to capture a wider range of existing usage. Central to our account is a distinction between two properties: basic invasiveness and threshold invasiveness. We end by assessing what the standard account gets right, and what more needs to be done to complete our schematic account.Data sharing not applicable as no datasets generated and/or analysed for this study.