States of Health for Bioethics

Abstract

Abstract U.S. states vary starkly on basic measures of health, from infant mortality to life expectancy. States also differ significantly on views about abortion, decision-making at life’s end, access to health care, and the respective roles of states and the federal government with respect to health care and public health. The constitutional structure in the United States enumerates powers to be exercised at the federal level but leaves responsibility for public health and the regulation of health care principally to the states. Nonetheless, ethical disagreements do not neatly track state lines. Bioethics has paid insufficient attention to differences in views about health or to the political structures within which they occur.