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The Right to Health Care: Ethical Considerations

Part of the book series: The International Library of Bioethics ((ILB,volume 92))

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Abstract

The present chapter examines the implications that the right to health care has for members of society. It outlines some of the limitations of this right, and identifies conditions under which the right turns into a duty. Matters such as informed consent are addressed from the perspective of patients, as are substitute decision making, privacy and access to research. The issue of addiction is also considered.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dussault and Franceschini (2006).

  2. 2.

    Sheiner (2014).

  3. 3.

    Papanicolas et al. (2020).

  4. 4.

    Di Rienzo (2006).

  5. 5.

    WHO: The Global Health |Observatory, “Total expenditure on health as a percentage of gross domestic product”, https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/total-expenditure-on-health-as-a-percentage-of-gross-domestic-product.

  6. 6.

    World Health Organization (2020.

  7. 7.

    Chapter 4, pp. 74 ff.

  8. 8.

    Mehrotra and Kapoor (2009).

  9. 9.

    Al-Ahsan (2009).

  10. 10.

    Austriaco (2016).

  11. 11.

    Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Death (1968).

  12. 12.

    Drake et al. (2017).

  13. 13.

    Cohena et al. (2012).

  14. 14.

    Or its equivalent. It is currently unclear whether the neurological structures of organisms like octopuses qualify as functional equivalents of brains in the sense under discussion.

  15. 15.

    This understanding of the term “placebo” is distinct from “active placebo” in research. The addition of the term “active” indicates that the intervention itself has causal efficacy, while the rem “placebo” indicates that it is not its causal efficacy that is being investigated. See Vase and Wartolowska (2019).

  16. 16.

    Royal Pharmaceutical Society, “Homeopathy”; https://www.rpharms.com/resources/quick-reference-guides/homeopathy.

  17. 17.

    White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (2002).

  18. 18.

    Delbaere and Smith (2006).

  19. 19.

    Chapter 6, pp. 124 f.

  20. 20.

    Cf. Japan, Article 4 (1) of the Child Welfare Act. See also McNary (2014) for US variations.

  21. 21.

    Cf. [1985] UKHL 7, [1986] AC 112, [1986] 1 FLR 229, [1985] 3 WLR 830; A.C. v. Manitoba (Director of Child and Family Services, 2009 SCC 30.

  22. 22.

    Cf. Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation v. D.H., McGill Journal of Law and Health (2016), https://mjlh.mcgill.ca/2016/03/21/revisiting-hamilton-health-sciences-corporation-v-d-h/.

  23. 23.

    In some jurisdictions, as for instance the United States of America, Phase 0 trials are suggested in order to demine whether the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a given pharmaceutical warrant moving ahead to Phase I-III trials.

  24. 24.

    Suvarna (2010).

  25. 25.

    “Tay Sachs Disease”. NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders). 2017, accessed 08/02/2021 at https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/tay-sachs-disease/.

  26. 26.

    Panneerchelvam and Norazmi (2003).

  27. 27.

    Chen and Fawcett (2016), Ngiam and Khor (2019).

  28. 28.

    European Council Conclusion on Personalised Medicine for Patients (2015/C 421/03), accessed 04/02/2021 at https://www.icpermed.eu/en/icpermed-medicine.php.

  29. 29.

    Hijmans (2018, Forthcoming).

  30. 30.

    United Nations, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/.

  31. 31.

    National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH), Costs of Substance Abuse, https://archives.drugabuse.gov/trends-statistics/costs-substance-abuse.

  32. 32.

    Weinstein and Weinstein (2014).

  33. 33.

    Lennerz and Lennerz (2018).

  34. 34.

    Grant and Chamberlain (2016), Zou et al. (2017).

  35. 35.

    Fernandez et al. (2011).

  36. 36.

    Nasser and Afify (2019).

  37. 37.

    Kreek et al. (2012).

  38. 38.

    Ferraguti et al. (2015), Farris et al. (2010).

  39. 39.

    Cf. Weinstein et all, note 34 supra.

  40. 40.

    Eitan et al. (2017).

  41. 41.

    Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Social Distancing,” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, FRSC, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Eike-Henner W. Kluge

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Kluge, EH.W. (2022). Members of Society. In: The Right to Health Care: Ethical Considerations. The International Library of Bioethics, vol 92. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93838-3_8

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