Morality, duty, and the arts in health: A project on Aboriginal underage pregnancy

Underage pregnancy in the Aboriginal population of Australia represents a serious set of physical, social, and mental problems. The shifts that have taken place in the population make-up of the communities due to this birth pattern are having detrimental effects on the well-being of individuals and families, including a destabilising of the sense of identity and belonging. The paper looks at the social and medical problems involved and summarises a project which aims to address them through the arts. It also considers the moral and ethical aspects of the situation, including the difficulties of any sort of intervention. It also considers the issue of duty for both medicine and the arts in such situations.