“The contributions to this symposium issue suggest that wellness is not merely an unregulated terrain but also a revealing one. It exposes how law encodes assumptions about health, merit, and access. It reveals how private law has attempted to fill the void left by public regulation and traditional health care delivery systems. And it invites a rethinking of the legal architectures that govern our bodily, mental, and spiritual futures.

“If the 20th century was shaped by the rise of health law as a coherent field, the 21st may require its expansion or reconfiguration to include the normative, economic, and technological dimensions of wellness. Doing so will not only clarify law’s role in shaping who can access what kind of care but will also help secure legal footing for those navigating the borderlands between treatment and optimization, survival and enhancement.

“This is the moment to ask: What and who is wellness for? And what kind of law do we need to answer those questions well?”

Barbara J. Zabawa