Spielman Bioethics in Law

1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59745-295-3
Verlag: Humana Press
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 186 Seiten

This groundbreaking volume is the first to analyze how and to what extent bioethics considerations influence today's judges. Previous books have attended to the law that governs bioethics problems, but this is the first to examine when and how bioethical issues impact judicial reasoning and decision-making. The volume examines the cutting-edge of the relationship of bioethics to law, and explores how law receives, assesses, and uses bioethics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Spielman, Bethany

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Preface;6
2;Contents;9
3;Introduction;10
3.1;1. Law’s Receptivity to Bioethics;10
3.2;2. Bioethics’ Eclecticism;12
3.3;3. The Approach of This Book;15
3.4;Endnotes;17
4;How Does Bioethics Help Judicial Reasoning?;21
4.1;1. How Can Bioethics Testimony Help?;22
4.2;2. When Is Bioethics Testimony Unhelpful?;27
4.3;3. How Can Bioethics Briefs Help?;36
4.4;4. When Are Briefs Unhelpful?;40
4.5;5. Summary;42
4.6;Endnotes;43
5;Health Care Ethics Committee Determinations;49
5.1;1. HEC Determinations and Adjudicative Fact;50
5.2;2. HEC Determinations as Legislative Facts;51
5.3;3. HEC Determinations as Normative Fact;55
5.4;4. Summary;61
5.5;Endnotes;62
6;Institutional Review Board Determinations;65
6.1;1. IRB Determinations as Normative Fact;67
6.2;2. Normative Weight Conditioned on Legal Compliance;71
6.3;3. IRB Determinations as Legislative Fact;74
6.4;4. IRB Determinations as Adjudicative Facts;75
6.5;5. Summary;77
6.6;Endnotes;78
7;Bioethics Commission Reports;81
7.1;1. Reports Provide Adjudicative Facts;82
7.2;2. Reports Provide Legislative Facts;85
7.3;3. Representational Versus Rhetorical Uses;88
7.4;4. Reports Provide Normative Facts;90
7.5;5. Approaches to Moral Pluralism;94
7.6;6. Summary;97
7.7;Endnotes;98
8;Bioethics Scholarship;106
8.1;1. Introduction;106
8.2;2. Compelling the Scholar;109
8.3;3. Protective Orders;116
8.4;4. Compensation;117
8.5;5. Summary;119
8.6;Endnotes;120
9;Reliability of Bioethics Testimony;128
9.1;1. Bioethics’ Eclecticism;128
9.2;2. Reliability of Ethics Strands;129
9.3;3. Steps in Generally Accepted Approaches to Ethical Reasoning;131
9.4;4. Summary;140
9.5;Endnotes;140
10;Reliability of Bioethics Testimony;144
10.1;1. Peer Review as a Default Standard;144
10.2;2. Limits of Peer Review;154
10.3;3. Summary;157
10.4;Endnotes;157
11;Reliability of Bioethics Testimony;161
11.1;1. Bioethics Experience and Skills;161
11.2;2. Skills and the Task at Hand;163
11.3;3. Steps in Reaching a Conclusion;166
11.4;4. Reliable Application of the Skill;170
11.5;5. Another Criterion and Other Skills;171
11.6;6. Summary;176
11.7;Endnotes;177
12;Conclusion;181

Leseproben

3 ,Institutional Review Board Determinations (p. 56-57)

Institutional review boards (IRBs) were created pursuant to the 1974 National Research Act1 to ensure that the rights and welfare of human subjects would be protected. The Act and implementing regulations were a response to research scandals, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis study, in which black men with syphilis were left untreated for more than three decades by the US Public Health Service, and the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital study, in which live cancer cells were injected into hospital patients without consent. The regulations delegated to IRBs the responsibility to review and oversee research on human subjects. Although they would be highly regulated, law would rely on them in an ongoing manner. Susan Wolf describes IRBs as a "perfect example of a body conceived to do both law and ethics. They are required to apply the federal regulations, which are law, but those regulations are so open-textured and the overriding mission of IRBs is so clearly to protect human subjects, that IRBs must do ethics too."

IRB recommendations are developed for a particular study and a particular set of researchers—not for litigation purposes. Those recommendations may include whether a study involving human subjects could ethically proceed, whether potential research subjects are "at risk," and if so, whether the risks outweigh the potential benefits to the research subjects and the importance of the knowledge that might be gained from the research, what information should be disclosed in the informed consent process, whether the selection of subjects is equitable, what methods should be used for protecting confidentiality, whether disclosures to subjects regarding confidentiality are adequate, how the data will be monitored to ensure the safety of subjects, and whether incentives to participate can be offered, and, if so, the conditions under which the offer may be made.3 Today, any of these bioethics recommendations, as well as communications regarding the processes by which they were reached, may interact with law.