Pan American Collaboration for Ethics in Professions, University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, TX 78539, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2010 Apr 1;100 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S47-51. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2009.171181. Epub 2010 Feb 10.
Health disparities exist along lines of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic class in US society. I argue that we should work to eliminate these health disparities because their existence is a moral wrong that needs to be addressed. Health disparities are morally wrong because they exemplify historical injustices. Contractarian ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarian ethics all provide theoretical justification for viewing health disparities as a moral wrong, as do several ethical principles of primary importance in bioethics. The moral consequences of health disparities are also troubling and further support the claim that these disparities are a moral wrong. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides additional support that health disparities are a moral wrong, as does an analogy with the generally accepted duty to provide equal access to education. In this article, I also consider and respond to 3 objections to my thesis.
在美国社会，健康差距存在于种族/民族和社会经济阶层的差异上。我认为，我们应该努力消除这些健康差距，因为这些差距的存在是一种需要解决的道德错误。健康差距在道德上是错误的，因为它们体现了历史上的不公正。契约论伦理学、康德伦理学和功利主义伦理学都为将健康差距视为道德错误提供了理论依据，而生物伦理学中的几个首要伦理原则也是如此。健康差距的道德后果也令人不安，进一步支持了这些差距是道德错误的观点。《世界人权宣言》为健康差距是道德错误提供了额外的支持，这与普遍接受的提供平等接受教育的义务的类比也是如此。在本文中，我还考虑并回应了对我的论文的 3 个反对意见。
