The law has therefore had two conflicting impacts on medical ethics: the positive effect of eroding paternalism and replacing it with a patient-centered ethic; and the negative effect of encouraging physicians to be more concerned with avoiding litigation than doing the "right" thing.

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. Roger B. Dworkin argues that resort to law is often misguided and overlooks the limitations of legal institutions. He carefully explores constitutional adjudication, legislation, common law, and administrative law as tools for responding to rapid change in biology and medicine, explains how these approaches actually deal with the social issues discussed, and (...) offers suggestions for more limited and effective use of the legal system in the area of bioethics. (shrink)