Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the responsibility to ensure the protection of human-research subjects and are legally liable if they fail to do so.
Supporters of reproductive choice believe that women receive inadequate information about prenatal testing—often after some testing has already been done.
Clinical trials for the blood substitute PolyHeme exposed the possibility for ambiguous interpretation of the FDA’s waiver of informed consent for emergency research.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.
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.
Two physicians offer commentaries about the use of prenatal predictive testing for a late-onset disease like Huntington's and question whether the pregnant woman should ultimately have the decisional autonomy to determine the quality of life of the unborn child.
Two physicians offer commentaries about the use of prenatal predictive testing for a late-onset disease like Huntington's and question whether the pregnant woman should ultimately have the decisional autonomy to determine the quality of life of the unborn child.