The Global Heart Transplant and Caring across National Boundaries

In this paper, I consider some political and moral issues that arise from the increasingly common phenomenon of migrant careworkers who are part of transnational families, often mothers of children who are left behind, but also daughters who leave behind elderly relatives who may need care. This is a phenomenon that Arlie Hochschild calls the “global care chain.” 2 In the first part of this paper, I will consider that this phenomenon poses a challenge, if not an outright dilemma, first for those of us who want to envision a state that takes on a feminist ethics of care as a public ethic and, second, for feminist aspirations for the full range of work/career opportunities. Each of these hopes and expectations are meant to benefit all women but are, in fact, being realized only by some women and in some nations. The achievements often rest on the labor of other women who serve as paid caregivers for dependents, women whose home of origin is often another poorer nation. In the second half, I want to consider the moral resources that can help us diagnose the nature of the injustice and the moral harm such practices entail and determine what, if any, moral resources are available to help us resolve the dilemma(s) I flag in the first half of the paper.