In our bioethics Institute in Albany the big focus right now is on the effect of the increasing presence of state government in bioethics-related areas, from the move to state-by-state stem cell funding decisions to the diversity of newborn screening programs to the coming wave of state-by-state assessment of physician assisted suicide. Our program in the area is being developed by both Alden March Bioethics Institute and our partners in the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government. It is my favorite project by far and I truly believe that work by bioethicists in state government and on state policy will come to be much more influential and important than that at the federal level. Long ago and far, far away I built a bioethics concentration at Penn around a course that required students to examine a problem in bioethics by thinking about and then authoring a proposed policy at the state level.
The catch was that to make an “A” in the course you had to get the bill formally introduced into the state legislature of your choosing. It was a weird experiment that drew the attention of the Times at a time when I believe I might have been the only liberal out there who wanted to see states take the initiative on stem cell research. Lots of fascinating people helped teach the students about health policy and lobbying. A number of the bills from “A” students were actually passed, including several that are now actually law in the area of genetic discrimination and even cloning.
I don’t teach that course anymore, but I have been more than persuaded that the motivation was right on the money: students and policymakers alike are clueless about the relationship between scholarly bioethics and state policy. And when it came time for big powerful states like California to deal with the matter of funding something on the scope of stem cell research, it showed.
Now comes Josh Braun, who gets it. In “The New Federalism” just out in Seed, he asks these questions of several other folks – what happens when science and bioethics goes to the states?