This comprehensive anthology represents the key issues and problems in the field of medical ethics through the most up-to-date readings and case studies available. Each of the book's six parts is prefaced with introductions that raise important questions and contextualise the main points of the articles that follow.

Preface --The contributors -- Introduction : Moral reasoning in the medical context -- Bioethics : nature and scope -- Sources of bioethical problems and concerns -- Challenges to ethical theory -- Moral theories and perspectives -- Religious ethics -- "Rights-based" approaches -- Communitarian ethics -- Feminist ethics -- Virtue ethics -- Nonmoral considerations -- Modes of moral reasoning -- pt. 1. Foundations of the health professional-patient relationship -- Section 1 : Autonomy, paternalism, and medical models -- The Hippocratic oath -- The refutation of medical paternalism / Alan Goldman -- Beneficence today, or autonomy (maybe) tomorrow? -- Commentary / Bernice S. Elger -- Commentary -- Jean-Claude Chevrolet -- Why doctors should intervene / Terrence F. Ackerman -- Four models of the physician-patient relationship / Ezekiel J. Emanuel -- and Linda L. Emanuel -- Section 2 : Informed consent and truth-telling -- Antihypertensives and the risk of temporary impotence : a case study in informed consent / John D. Arras -- Informed consent -- must it remain a fairy tale? / Jay Katz -- Errors in medicine : nurturing truthfulness / François Baylis -- Bioethics in a different tongue : the case of truth-telling / Leslie J. Blackhall, Gelya Frank, Sheila Murphy, -- and Vicki Michel -- Offering truth / Benjamin Freedman. Section 3 : Conflicting professional roles and responsibilities -- Vitaly Tarasoff et al. v. The Regents of the University of California et al., Defendants and Respondents -- Please don't tell! -- Commentary / Leonard Fleck -- Commentary / Marcia Angell -- Disclosing misattributed paternity / Lainie Friedman Ross -- SARS plague : duty of care or medical heroism? / Dessmon YH Tai -- The lessons of SARS / Ezekiel J. Emanuel -- What should the dean do? -- Commentary / Gregory L. Eastwood -- Commentary / Daniel Fu-Chang Tsai -- and Ding-Shinn Chen -- Commentary / James Dwyer -- The limits of conscientious objection -- may pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception? / Julie Cantor -- and Ken Baum -- When law and ethics collide -- why physicians participate in executions / Atul Gawande -- "To comfort always" : physician participation in executions / Ken Baum -- Dialysis for a prisoner of war -- Commentary / Daniel Zupan, Gary Solis, -- and Richard Schoonhoven -- Commentary / George Annas -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 2. Allocation, social justice, and health policy -- Section 1 : Justice, health, and health care -- An ethical framework for access to health care / President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research -- Equal opportunity and health care / Norman Daniels -- Freedom and moral diversity : the moral failures of health care in the welfare state / H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. -- Social determinants of health : the solid facts -- Why the United States is not number one in health / Ichiro Kawachi -- Justice, health, and healthcare / Norman Daniels -- Opportunity is not the key / Gopal Sreenivasan -- Section 2 : Allocating scare resources -- Bone marrow transplants for advanced cancer : the story of Christine deMeurers / Alex John London -- Justice and the high cost of health / Ronald Dworkin -- Imposing personal responsibility for health / Robert Steinbrook -- Responsibility in health care : a liberal egalitarian approach / Alexander W. Cappelen -- and Ole Frithjof Norheim -- Last-chance therapies and managed care : pluralism, fair procedures, and legitimacy / Norman Daniels -- and James Sabin -- Illegal immigrants, health care, and social responsibility / James Dwyer -- Rationing vaccine during and avian influenza pandemic : why it won't work / John D. Arras -- Who should get influenza vaccine when not all can? / Ezekiel J. Emanuel -- and Alan Wertheimer. Section 3 : Organ transplantation : gifts versus markets -- The case for allowing kidney sales / Janet Radcliffe-Richards, Abdallah S. Daar, Ronald D. Guttmann, Raymond Hoffenberg, Ian Kennedy, Margaret Lock, Robert A. Sells, Nicholas L. Tilney, -- International Forum for Transplant Ethics -- An ethical market in human organs / Charles A. Erin -- and John Harris -- Body values : the case against compensating for transplant organs / Donald Joralemon -- and Phil Cox -- Section 4 : Poverty, health, and justice beyond national borders -- Responsibilities for poverty-related illness / Thomas W. Pogge -- Do we owe the global poor assistance or rectification? / Mathias Risse -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 3. Defining death, forgoing life-sustaining treatment, and euthanasia -- Section 1 : The definition of death -- Defining death / President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research -- The whole-brain concept of death remains optimum policy / James L. Bernat -- An alternative to brain death / Jeff McMahan -- Section 2 : Decisional capacity and the right to refuse treatment -- State of Tennessee Department of Human Services v. Mary C. Northern -- Transcript of proceedings : testimony of Mary C. Northern -- Deciding for others : competency / Allen Buchanan -- and Dan W. Brock -- A chronicle : Dax's case as it happened / Keith Burton -- Commentary / Robert B. White -- Commentary / H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. -- Section 3 : Advance directives -- The health care proxy and the living will / George J. Annas -- Enough : the failure of the living will / Angela Fagerling -- and Carl E. Schneider -- Testing the limits of prospective autonomy : five scenarios -- Norman L. Cantor. Section 4 : Choosing for once-competent patients -- Erring on the side of Theresa Schiavo : reflections of the special guardian ad litem / Jay Wolfson -- "Human non-person" : Terri Schiavo, bioethics, and our future / Wesley J. Smith -- In the matter of Claire C. Conroy -- The severely demented, minimally functional patient : an ethical analysis / John D. Arras -- Nutrition and hydration : moral and pastoral reflections / U.S. Bishops' Pro-Life Committee -- Quality of life and non-treatment decisions for incompetent patients : a critique of the orthodox approach / Rebecca S. Dresser -- and John A. Robertson -- The limits of legal objectivity / Nancy K. Rhoden -- Section 5 : Choosing for never-competent patients -- Termination of life-support for a never-competent patient : the case of Sheila Pouliot -- Extreme prematurity and parental rights after Baby Doe / John A. Robertson -- Resuscitation of the preterm infant against parental wishes / John J. Paris, Michael D. Schreiber, -- and Alun C. Elias-Jones. Section 6 : Physician-assisted death -- Death and dignity : a case of individualized decision making / Timothy E. Quill -- Physician-assisted suicide : a tragic view / John D. Arras -- Assisted suicide : the philosophers' brief introduction / Ronald Dworkin -- The philosophers' brief / Ronald Dworkin, -- Thomas Nagel, / Robert Nozick, John Rawls, -- Thomas Scanlon, -- and Judith Jarvis Thomas -- Euthanasia : the way we do it, the way they do it / Margaret P. Battin -- Is there a duty to die? / John Hardwig -- "For now have I my death" : the "duty to die" versus the duty to help the ill stay alive / Felicia Nimue Ackerman -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 4. Reproduction -- Section 1 : The morality of abortion -- The unspeakable crime of abortion / Pope John Paul II -- Why abortion is immoral / Don Marquis -- Why most abortions are not wrong / Bonnie Steinbock -- The morality of abortion / Margaret Olivia Little -- Section 2 : Obligations to the not-yet-born -- The rights of "unborn children" and the value of pregnant women / Howard Minkoff -- and Lynn M. Paltrow -- Reproductive freedom and prevention of genetically transmitted harmful conditions / Allen Buchanan, Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels, -- and Daniel Wikler -- Cheap listening? Reflections on the concept of wrongful disability / Richard J. Hull -- Section 3 : Assisted reproduction -- The presumptive primacy of procreative liberty / John Robertson -- Instruction on respect for human life in its origin and on the dignity of procreation / Vatican, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- What are families for? Getting to an ethics of reproductive technology / -- Thomas H. Murray -- Grade A : the market for a Yale woman's eggs / Jessica Cohen -- Payment for egg donation / Bonnie Steinbock -- Section 4 : Reproductive cloning -- The case against cloning-to-produce-children / -- The Presidents' Council on Bioethics -- Reproductive cloning : another look / Bonnie Steinbock -- Even if it worked, cloning wouldn't bring her back / Thomas H. Murray -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 5. Genetics -- Section 1 : Prenatal genetic testing -- Prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion : a challenge to practice and policy / Adrienne Asch -- Disability, prenatal testing, and selective abortion / Bonnie Steinbock -- Ethical issues and practical problems in preimplantation genetic diagnosis / Jeffrey R. Botkin -- Using preimplantation genetic diagnosis to save a sibling : the story of Molly and Adam Nash / Bonnie Steinbock -- Section 2 : Therapeutic cloning and stem cell research -- Embryo ethics -- the moral logic of stem-cell research / Michael J. Sandel -- Acorns and embryos / Robert P. George -- and Patrick Lee -- Surplus embryos, nonreproductive cloning, and the intend/forsee distinction / William FitzPatrick -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 6. Experimentation on human subjects -- Section 1: Born in scandal : the origins of U.S. research ethics -- The Nuremberg Code -- The Jewish chronic disease hospital case / John D. Arras -- The Willowbrook hepatitis studies / David J. Rothman -- and Sheila M. Rothman -- Racism and research : the case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study / Allan M. Brandt -- The Belmont report : ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research / The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research -- Section 2 : The ethics of randomized clinical trials -- Ethical difficulties with randomized clinical trials involving cancer patients : examples from the field of gynecologic oncology / Maurie Markman -- Of mice but not of men : problems of the randomized clinical trial / Samuel Hellman -- and Deborah S. Hellman -- A response to a purported ethical difficulty with randomized clinical trials involving cancer patients / Benjamin Freedman. Section 3 : Ethical issues in international research -- Unethical trials of interventions to reduce perinatal transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus in developing countries / Peter Lurie -- and Sidney M. Wolfe -- AZT trials and tribulations / Robert A. Crouch -- and John D. Arras -- The ambiguity and the exigency : clarifying "standard of care" arguments in international research / Alex John London -- Research in developing countries : taking "benefit" seriously / Leonard H. Glantz, George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin, -- and Wendy K. Mariner -- Fair benefits for research in developing countries / Participants in the 2001 conference on Ethical Aspects of Research in Developing Countries -- Section 4 : Research on children -- Children and "minimal risk" research : the Kennedy-Krieger lead paint study / Alex John London -- Research on children and the scope of responsible parenthood / Thomas H. Murray -- In loco parentis : minimal risk as an ethical threshold for research upon children / Benjamin Freedman, Abraham Fuks, -- and Charles Weijer -- Recommended supplementary reading. pt. 7. Emerging technologies and perennial issues -- Section 1 : Emerging technologies -- The designer baby myth / Steven Pinker -- Applications of behavioural genetics : outpacing the science? / Mark A. Rothstein -- Neuroethics / Walter Glannon -- Section 2 : Enhancement -- Growth hormone therapy for the disability of short stature / David B. Allen -- The genome project, individual differences, and just health care / Norman Daniels -- Genetic interventions and the ethics of enhancement of human beings / Julian Savulescu -- The case against perfection : what's wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering / Michael J. Sandel -- Anyone for tennis, at the age of 150? / Ronald Bailey -- Section 3 : Free will and responsibility -- Neurobiology, neuroimaging, and free will / Walter Glannon -- Recommended supplementary reading.