BIOE 5780 Bioethics and Human Rights

The constitution of the World Health Organization enshrines “the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being.” If such a right exists, it is far from being realized. Worldwide, over 1 billion people are living in hunger. Every day, 21,000 children die before their fifth birthday of pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea and other diseases. Even wealthy countries are marked by significant health disparities. In the U.S., for instance, infants born to African-American women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely to die than infants born to women of other races. This course explores the moral principles and the political and legal structures that inform a human rights approach to health. What sorts of freedoms (e.g., to bodily integrity) and entitlements (e.g., to accessible and affordable health care) does a right to the highest attainable standard of health entail? If countries cannot ensure their citizens’ right to the highest attainable standard of health, what responsibility does the international community bear for intervening? Should undocumented and irregular migrants have the same access to health care as citizens? Is a human rights approach to health compatible with using the market to allocate health-related goods? Finally, what are the limitations of analyzing health and formulating health policy using a human rights framework.