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I. Glenn Cohen, The Relationship Between Bioethics and U.S. Health Law: Past, Present, and Future, in The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Health Law (I. Glenn Cohen, Allison K. Hoffman & William M. Sage eds., 2017).


Abstract: This chapter explores the way bioethics is taught as part of U.S. health law. It begins with an overview of changes in several major textbooks in the field that cover bioethics and the law, in terms of their content and the way they organize the field. It then considers the problem of translation and, more specifically, the ways in which the ethical discourse gets translated into a much more formalist legal discourse, by discussing a number of recent court cases, including Sherley v. Sebelius and Isaacson v. Horne. It proceeds by assessing where the field is going, with emphasis on the increased interest in population-level bioethics and the law, including the increased recognition of intellectual property and drug development as topics for both disciplines. The chapter also examines the rise of libertarian bioethics in litigation by focusing on two circuit court cases: Abigail Alliance v. Eschenbach and Flynn v. Holder.