Criteria in statutes and tests used to diagnose brain death don’t always jibe, and this can undermine public trust in death pronouncements.

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.

Hospital ethics committees originated with concerns about legal liability, but today they educate, develop and implement policies, and review cases.

False health-related speech can cause harm, but it’s not restricted unless it’s obscene. Physicians are obliged not only to correct patients’ false beliefs, but to engage digital spaces in which false claims thrive.

Professional society guidelines can be used to set standards for clinical practice instead of government. This approach could help if federal or state policymakers view discarding embryos as ethically equivalent to abortion.

Genome editing raises old questions, but CRISPR arose in a political landscape that vastly differs from the early aughts.

When clinicians engage surrogates in video calls showing the patient’s body, several competing ethical questions must be considered.

Professor Katie Watson joins Ethics Talk to discuss what clinicians need to know about changes to the post-June 2022 legal, ethical, and clinical landscape of abortion care in the US.

Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin joins Ethics Talk to consider how members of different US Supreme Courts have interpreted the US Constitution in ways that have supported or undermined liberty in surprising ways.

This article canvasses states’ legal prohibitions and challenges to them and considers consequences for clinicians and patients.