Bioethics topics

 In this post, I'll be choosing my topics for geographical consideration. I think I'm going to have some difficulty with  states in which the majority of the population live in a small geographical percent of the state (Like Oregon), but I think I can address this issue with county-by-county break-downs on votes for certain issues, and also local journalism. I also considered expanding my inquiry to the areas of Mexico and Canada that are mentioned in Woodard's writings, since much of First Nation and El Norte is outside our borders. But that would require some knowledge of their legal systems so I decided against it.

It'd be good to seek some issues that are legal, and some that are just hotly debated because that will give some insight into the reasoning. I should pick some that are unique to certain states and highly relevant to their culture. It would also be prudent to have a few extra for back-up in case I can't find enough content on specific issues or they are only really relevant to certain states.

Potential topics:

1) Abortion-
I could site the arguments people give and examine how they relate to values based on the cultural region they reside in.
2) Contraception-
This issue would probably be similar to Abortion, with more relevance to Tidewater and the Deep south because of their value of Tradition
3) Euthanasia (Physician-assisted suicide)
This one would probably only be relevant in a few states, but revealing when considering the value of individual freedom vs the value of collectivism.
4) Gene Theft 
Similar to the item above, this may be relevant in only a few states. But very tied-in to their values.
5) Faith Healing (specifically exemptions)
Certain states have exceptions in their child neglect laws that allow parents to forgo medical treatment in favor of Faith Healing. This says quite a lot about culture in terms of the value of religion.
6) GMOs 
Genetically Modified Organisms are obviously not illegal, but they do generate quite a few opinions. This would be a topic about which it would be easy to find many, many arguments online. The only challenge here would be find out where each of these arguments came from, geographically.
7) Spiritual Drug Use
This would be a good topic to address The First Nation since many Native American Tribes used hallucinatory drugs for religious ceremonies and their aren't any attributes listed I can tie to Bioethics. Which states has their culture influenced the laws? State Law often includes exceptions for Native American tribe members.
8) Stem Cell Research Though this topic is ripe with cultural perceptions, are they possible to break down by state? Again, I could look for credible opinion pieces online and track the author to their childhood home.
9) Vaccine controversy 
 This issue is distributed throughout all the cultural regions, I'm sure. I could try and find out where the highest saturation are and tie the individualism to the cultural regions, if that is indeed the case.