A summary of the legal cases that have set precedence for the rights of physicians and surrogates when life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn from patients who cannot make the final decision for themselves.
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.
Jody Steinauer, MD, MAS and Carolyn Sufrin, MD, MA
Legislative policies that require a physician to misrepresent the risks of abortion to patients and to show the patient an ultrasound and those that allow physicians not to provide referral for abortion create a conflict between the physician's obligations to the patient and to the law.
More anti-abortion legislation was passed in 2011 than in any other year since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. In the first half of the year, more than 80 abortion-related restrictions were enacted across the United States.
Julian Savulescu's writing on conscientious objection is guided by an emphasis on the principle of distributive justice that does not allow religion to have a special status as justification.