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.
In the past, forced sterilizations violated the autonomy of vulnerable women. Today, measures intended to protect such women from the abuses of the past may in fact hamper their autonomy in a different way.
State laws prohibiting sodomy were on the books throughout US history until struck down by the US Supreme Court, which argued in Lawrence v Texas (2003) that the state cannot criminalize private sexual conduct.