Physicians need to exhaust every possible alternative to bring about political changes before resorting to breaking the law as an act of civil disobedience.
When deciding whether a pregnant woman will take antidepressants that pose a slight risk to the fetus, the patient and doctor must each make value-based determinations about whether absolute protection of the fetus is more important than preventing the mother’s probable suffering.
Amanda Fakih, MHSA and Kayte Spector-Bagdady, JD, MBE
Testing everyone for everything identifies more fetal conditions, but confusion persists about whether clinicians should leave screening decisions to patients.
AMA J Ethics. 2019;21(10):E858-864. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2019.858.
When a pregnant woman is knowingly causing harm to her unborn child, there are various legal interventions that can be taken to protect the rights if the fetus.
Although parents may someday have the ability to enhance the complex physical and mental traits of their offspring, such genetic enhancements raise a number of difficult ethical questions.