Limits The Role of the Law in Bioethical Decision Making

"An excellent resource for entry-level courses on bioethics for health care practitioners, law students, and physicians." ―Choice

"Dworkin's provocative arguments . . . will challenge readers who have come to accept the law's intrusion as a necessary response to biomedical advances." ―New England Journal of Medicine

"Important and refreshing. Dworkin's conclusions regarding the limited role of law (and especially legislation) may come as a surprise to many. . . . When popular and political views are almost evenly divided, looking to legislation for a solution is a mistake." ―Walter Wadlington

The ethical and social dilemmas associated with abortion, sterilization, assisted reproduction, genetics, death and dying, and biomedical research have led many to turn to the legal system for solutions. Rogert Dworkin argues that resort to law often overlooks the limitations of legal institutions, and he suggests a more limited use of the legal system will produce more effective resolution of bioethical dilemmas.

ROGER B. DWORKIN is Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law–Bloomington and Nelson Poynter Scholar and Director of Medical Studies at Indiana University's Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions. An expert in the relationship between law and the biomedical sciences, Dworkin is co-author of a leading casebook on law and medicine.