The Hastings Center Project on Imperiled Newborns: Supreme Court, Jury, or Greek Chorus?

Abstract

Ethics committees are many-splendored things and fulfill a variety of different functions. They can be educational resources, policy-making bodies, or consultants for particularly troubling cases. They can be legal watchdogs or instruments of institutional risk management. They can empower nurses or parents in conflicts with physicians or provide solace to physicians who face disturbing decisions. When ethics committees do so many things at once, there is a danger that they will do nothing well or will sabotage their central mission by getting embroiled in tangential or peripheral issues.

But how should ethics committees work? Should they merely reflect widely held opinions, or can they show us new and better ways to analyze and solve controversial problems?