ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Specific Issues in Health Care

Jackie is fifteen years old and unmarried. She wants to marry someday and have a family—but not now. Jackie just found out she is three weeks pregnant. She is considering having an abortion. Does she have to tell her parents? Does she need their permission for an abortion? What about her boyfriend? Can he stop her from having the abortion?

Karl is fifty-four years old, and suffers from advanced terminal colon cancer. Every day he watches as the strain of his disease takes its emotional and physical toll on his wife and children. Then there is the financial strain. He worries that with the mounting medical bills, there will be nothing left for his family after he is gone. Karl wants to control the end of his life. Karl asks his doctor to prescribe barbiturates so that he can decide when and where to die. Karl's doctor does not want to give him the medication. Does Karl have a right to die by having his doctor help him to commit suicide?

This section looks at some specific health-care issues including assisted reproductive technologies, abortion, organ donation, and euthanasia.

Subsections

1. Assisted Reproductive Technologies
2. Abortion
3. Organ Donation
4. Assisted Suicide