The Law of Bioethics

This casebook covers contemporary issues in bioethics ranging from reproductive choice to decision making about death. It teaches legal doctrine through judicial opinions and statutes; it teaches analytical and practical skills through a diverse set of problems. The casebook also enables students to think broadly about regulatory issues by supplementing traditional legal materials with patients' accounts of their illnesses, doctors' reports of their encounters with patients, ethicists' reflections, and researchers' findings on how medical decisions are made, the results those decisions produce, and the impact of various forms of legal regulation. Finally, the casebook encourages students to use the law of bioethics as a window into larger questions about the role of law as a form of social regulation and the impact of American culture on the development of law and regulatory strategy.