Labels commonly used in clinical settings, like “elective” or “therapeutic,” influence how we think about the justifiability of abortion. We talk with Professor Katie Watson and Dr Maryl Sackeim about how the language clinicians use to describe abortion can affect patients’ experiences and even cause harm.

Current policy requires separate informed consent for some Public Health Service increased-risk donors, and this can make shared decision making harder.

Whether a patient’s decisional regret constitutes a failure of shared decision making can depend on how a decision was made.

Shared decision making honors patient autonomy, particularly for preference-sensitive care decisions and even when patients have impaired decision-making capacity.

Dr Sean C. McConnell provides an introduction to gene editing, and Scott J. Schweikart discusses what prudent governance requires.

Legacy patients are so-called because their opioid use behaviors express past, aggressive opioid prescribing by a clinician. Managing their pain and dependence justly is ethically complex.

Social work perspectives on whether prescribers should authorize opioid refills emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary approaches to patient self-determination.

Research that places subjects and investigators at risk of additional harm must be considered carefully.

Dr Dónal O’Mathúna joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Nawaraj Upadhaya: “Should Children Be Enrolled in Clinical Research in Conflict Zones?”

Inequitable care and outcomes experienced by persons with mental illness have long been exacerbated by stigma expressed by clinicians.