Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Ethical and Legal Regulation of Medical Practice and Research
- B Medical Ethics, Imperialism, and the Nation-State
- C Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- 59 Making Distinctions “Natural”: The Science of Social Categorization in the United States in the Twentieth Century
- 60 History of Public Health Ethics in the United States
- 61 Ethics and Health Policy in the United Kingdom and the United States: Legislation and Regulation
- 62 Ethical Issues in Organ Transplantation in the United States
- 63 Defining and Redefining Life and Death
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
61 - Ethics and Health Policy in the United Kingdom and the United States: Legislation and Regulation
from C - Medical Ethics and Health Policy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART II A CHRONOLOGY OF MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART III DISCOURSES OF MEDICAL ETHICS THROUGH THE LIFE CYCLE
- PART IV THE DISCOURSES OF RELIGION ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART V THE DISCOURSES OF PHILOSOPHY ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VI THE DISCOURSES OF PRACTITIONERS ON MEDICAL ETHICS
- PART VII THE DISCOURSES OF BIOETHICS
- PART VIII DISCOURSES ON MEDICAL ETHICS AND SOCIETY
- Ethical and Legal Regulation of Medical Practice and Research
- B Medical Ethics, Imperialism, and the Nation-State
- C Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- 59 Making Distinctions “Natural”: The Science of Social Categorization in the United States in the Twentieth Century
- 60 History of Public Health Ethics in the United States
- 61 Ethics and Health Policy in the United Kingdom and the United States: Legislation and Regulation
- 62 Ethical Issues in Organ Transplantation in the United States
- 63 Defining and Redefining Life and Death
- Appendix: Biographies: Who Was Who in the History of Medical Ethics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
A chapter by authors whose expertise is politics and policy making is appropriately an underinformed and perhaps overly cynical contribution to a history of medical ethics, which we take to mean disciplined statements about what is proper in relationships between health professionals and patients and between persons responsible for public health and populations. Whatever the achievements of ethicists in other arenas (Jonsen 1998), their influence on the development of legislation and regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States has been at best mixed.
Ethical doctrines have sometimes influenced the development of public policy, such as regulations in the United States for the protection of human subjects of research (see Chapters 50, 51, and 57). Ethical doctrines have also influenced how policy is implemented. That is, ethicists have helped to implement policies made for other reasons than the persuasiveness of their reasoning. Moreover, ethicists have helped to shape public opinion and, perhaps, the views of some of the elected and appointed officials who make policy, sometimes through commissions appointed by public bodies. Unfortunately, we do not know how to isolate the influence of ethical doctrines from that of the vast amount of other information available to policy makers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics , pp. 667 - 677Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008