Buck Vs Lee Essay

The State should play a role in healthcare and medical research such that it establishes regulations and provides adequate funding without overstepping its boundaries and crossing into private, individual patient cases unless all other options have been exhausted. In cases such as the legal case of Buck v. Bell and the medical case of Lia Lee, the State overstepped its boundaries and crossed into controversial territory. In the Buck v. Bell case, the State attempted to put a statute into play that would allow for the sterilization of those who were deemed “unfit,” including Ms. Carrie Buck. In the Lee case, a child was taken from her family and placed into a foster family in order to undergo her medical treatments. Though this may have been …show more content…
After the Holocaust, a set of Laws was set as the standard for medical and research ethics, thus the Nuremberg Code. In a 1953 Document, the Nuremberg Code is presented, followed by this statement, “Much the same rules in regard to medical experiments on human beings have been delineated by the American Medical Association” (Shimkin 401-403). The Nuremberg Code was a response to the atrocities that occurred in Europe during the Holocaust, and the main function of the Code was to clearly state what was legal and illegal in the field of medicine with humans as subjects, because “Research on human beings, of course, involves unique hazards, precautions, and responsibilities…ethical, religious, and legal considerations, cannot and must not be ignored or minimized” (Shimkin 401). Other regulatory groups and systems have been put into play in order to make sure these considerations are not ignored; these include the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services among many others. These governmentally funded groups as well as others have been the reason for protections and standards of care that must be met when it comes to human experimentation, medical testing, and the healthcare