State Legislation and the Handicapped Newborn: A Moral and Political Dilemma

Pediatric ethics committees: ethical advisers or legal watchdogs?

Over the past ten years or so, an increasing number of health care institutions have established institutional ethics committees (IECs) for the purposes of education, policy making, and review of cases. Proponents of IECs view them as important interdisciplinary mechanisms that improve decision making in the complex cases that sometimes arise in clinical medicine. Critics of IECs tend to interpret them as threats to the autonomy of physicians and an unnecessary bureaucratization of decision making. In spite of these criticisms, IECs seem to have filled an important role in many institutions and have a reasonably secure future.

Selective nontreatment--one year later: reflections and a response

The author describes the personal and social context in which Selective Nontreatment of Handicapped Newborns was written. He gives an account of events pertaining to the selective nontreatment of handicapped newborns that have taken place in the United States since the writing of the book. Finally, he responds to the major criticisms of the book put forth by the four reviewers.