As high-tech care decisions led to value clashes in hospital corridors, ethics committees developed to respond to diverse viewpoints, families’ concerns, and clinicians’ moral distress. They now exist in almost all US health care organizations.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(5):546-553. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.5.mhst1-1605.
Physicians should provide women considering abortion after Down syndrome screening with unbiased information and not attempt to influence their decision.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(4):359-364. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.4.ecas1-1604.
The social institutions of medicine and the state have a complex history of interaction in which doctors have been the originators of political ideals, goals, and social change but equally often have found themselves to be instruments of political authority.
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.
Transgender people planning a medical transition face decisions about family planning, fertility preservation, and how to access gender-affirming treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(11):1119-1125. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.11.pfor2-1611.
All of us who are pursuing solutions to the obesity epidemic face clinical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. First among them is the significant role of individual lifestyle and behavior choices in causing obesity.