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13 HEC F. 1 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/hecforum13 and id is 1 raw text is: HE C FORUM C2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2001; 13(1):1-12. Printed in The Netherlands. THE LEVERAGE OF THE LAW: THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF LAW ON HEALTHCARE ETHICS COMMITTEES LINDA S. SCHEIRTON, Ph.D. JUDITH LEE KISSELL, Ph.D. Introduction A sizable amount of health- and law-related literature has been written to demonstrate the intertwining of law and bioethics (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Professor George Annas, a lawyer/bioethicist has argued that law, more specifically American law, rather than the disciplines of philosophy or medicine, explains the proliferation of bioethics in healthcare (1)(2). In 1999, Alexander Capron stated that the roots of bioethics in American law helped drive bioethics toward proceduralism and away from specific normative conclusions (8). Other bioethicists argue that law has insinuated itself into the process of bioethical decisionmaking or that the law is codified bioethics (9). Clearly, laws are used to enforce moral viewpoints, although not all bioethical issues have a counterpart in case law, legislation or administrative regulation. We have not, however, taken a hard look at the leverage of the law and its increasing influence on bioethical decisionmaking and on healthcare ethics committees (HECs) in general. History Where are the differences and what are the similarities between health law and bioethics? Each discipline is concerned with issues of morality, or more specifically, with identifying norms of conduct. But their foundations are different as well as their goals and sanctions. For example, law can coerce, while ethics prefers praise and blame. However, it is probably safe to say that ethics and law are complementary. The case of Karen Ann Quinlan, one of the best known and most cited cases in the history of bioethics, may clarify this point. The moral question arose as to whether the removal of a respirator was the moral equivalent of killing a patient (10). The twenty-one-year-old woman suffered respiratory arrest after apparently consuming an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates that left her in a persistent vegetative state. The New Jersey 1

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