Bioethics and Law in the United States: A Legal Process Perspective

Abstract

An analytical exposition of the law regarding a patient's "right to die" as it has developed in the United States over the last 30 years provides an exemplar overview of the variety of legal mechanisms that American legal institutions can and do bring to bear to deal with the challenges posed by new developments in medicine and the biosciences. Opposing "pro-life" and "pro-choice" ideological and political forces have been channeled through the federal and state legislative, judicial, and executive branches, where the various legal actors have developed legal principles that so far provide patients with a right to refuse any form of life-prolonging treatment while denying them (in all but one state) the right to physician-assisted suicide. The tension between these forces continues to exist, and the law is in a constant process of change.