Asymmetry in knowledge and power between (1) physicians and patients and (2) physician educators and their students creates a climate for possible abuse in both sets of relationships.
Supporters of reproductive choice believe that women receive inadequate information about prenatal testing—often after some testing has already been done.
Article explains the right granted to state public health agencies by the Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts to mandate vaccination in the presence of actual or threatened danger to the health of its residents from infectious disease.
Direct sterilization by means of tubal ligation is morally unacceptable in Catholic bioethics but other procedures that result in indirect sterilization may be acceptable under certain conditions.
The ongoing anthrax vaccination case, Doe v Rumsfeld, tests whether the military can require participation in and punish refusal of a vaccination program while waiving informed consent.
Raphael P. Viscidi, MD and Keerti V. Shah, MD, DrPH
The arguments for mandatory vaccination with human papillomavirus vaccine differs from the justification for mandatory use of vaccines that protect against more easily transmitted diseases.