Abstract

Debate over the relationship of law and bioethics is growing - what the relationship has been and what it should be in the future. While George Annas has praised law and rights-talk for creating modern bioethics, Carl Schneider has instead blamed law for hijacking bioethics and stunting moral reflection. Indeed, as modern bioethics approaches the 40-year mark, historians of bioethics are presenting divergent accounts. In one account, typified by Albert Jonsen, bioethics largely grew out of philosophy and theology, not law. In another account, law has deeply shaped bioethics from the start, forging its central commitment to the rights of patients and research subjects and the fields imposition of broad fiduciary responsibilities on health care professionals and researchers.In addition to debating how to properly describe laws historical relationship to bioethics, commentators have argued over whether laws influence in bioethics is now good or bad.