Health Law and Bioethics

Bioethics asks not only what science, biotechnology and medicine can do, but what we should allow them to do—and who gets to decide. This course analyzes contemporary issues in health care and biomedical research to explore how law both structures, and is reshaped by, central problems in bioethics. Topics include experimentation on human subjects; research misconduct and the regulation of scientific integrity; researcher and physician conflicts of interest; reproductive ethics, including prenatal embryo testing; genetic and genomic information and data privacy; end of life decision making and medical aid in dying; organ donation, transplantation, and allocation; artificial intelligence and digital health tools in clinical care and research; and access to investigational medical products, such as through FDA’s expanded access (“compassionate use”) pathway. Throughout the course, students will engage with primary legal materials, interdisciplinary scholarship in law, public health, and bioethics, and problem based hypotheticals that require analysis of the trade offs among autonomy, justice, and innovation. This course will familiarize students with key bioethical debates, the legal framework relevant to each debate, and the policy goals on which each framework is based, which will enable them to make recommendations and consider legal reforms in these areas. The course will be of interest to students interested in health law, bioethics, the regulation of emerging technologies or policy work in government, hospitals, life science companies, advocacy organizations.