A central tenet to much ethical argument within medical law is patient autonomy. 1 Although
we have seen a welcome move away from a system governed by largely unchecked …

Autonomy is a concept that holds much appeal to social and legal philosophers. Within a
medical context, it is often argued that it should be afforded supremacy over other concepts …

Autonomy is a vital principle in medical law and ethics. It occupies a prominent place in all
medico-legal and ethical debate. But there is a dangerous presumption that it should have …

Capacity to consent to treatment is the ability or skill which a person must have to ensure the
primacy of respect for a person's autonomy. Respect for autonomy is the guiding principle in …

COMPETENT individuals are at liberty to make their own medical treatment decisions;
incompetent individuals are not. Thus, competence and liberty are inextricably interwoven …

Three radical changes have occurred in the ancient edifice of medical ethics in the last two
decades. Each promises to transform the nature of the physician-patient relationship with …

For centuries, physician beneficence went unchallenged as the first principle of medical
ethics. To be sure, some physicians had, at times, violated this principle. But no creditable …

Patient autonomy has long been the dominant rhetorical value in American medical law and
medical ethics. It has been far less dominant in fact. Now, developments in genetics raise …

Judges and legal scholars have long asserted the importance of patient autonomy in
medical decisionmaking. Yet autonomy has never been recognized as a legally protectable …

Medical law inevitably involves decision-making, but the types of decisions that need to be
made vary in nature, from those that are purely technical to others that contain an inherent …