Federal regulations governing egg donation fall into two categories: safety testing and truth in advertising. Neither deals directly with informed consent by, for example, specifying what information donors must be given.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Lusine Aghajanova, MD, PhD and Cecilia T. Valdes, MD
While sex selection of children for nonmedical reasons is not prohibited in the United States, the authors believe that sperm sorting should not be used until more safety data are available.
Navajo students whose beliefs forbid them from touching dead bodies need not forgo pursuing careers in medicine; some medical school administrators are teaching anatomy without cadavers.
A growing number of states is enacting laws to protect the right of health care workers to conscientiously object to perform certain services that are morally opposed to.