What is Form of Scientific Rationality

In health promotion discourses, access to medical care is presented as a universal remedy. As a result, ethical considerations are often limited to the issue of equitable access. Yet focusing on access to healthcare hides the issue of access to data needed for scientific development. Putting into place a system for saving lives involves population health monitoring and is founded on scientific rationality. This chapter refocuses political attention from medical intervention to what makes it possible. In doing so, the underlying ethical issue shifts from a concern with universal access to healthcare—considered a right from an equity standpoint—to a discussion of the options and consequences of a type of government based on science. The author puts forward the idea that it is not because it is technically and scientifically possible to do something that it should be done. To illustrate this argument, the chapter discusses the example of The Lancet's project on stillbirths (2011-2030) taken up by the WHO.