ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the pre-eminence of the principle of autonomy. Where there are conflicts with other ethical principles, autonomy generally triumphs, and this the law recognises. General practitioners are given permission by virtue of their special position as doctors to behave in the way and thus require consent from the patient to do so. That consent might take several forms. The ethical principle of autonomy, according to Beauchamp and Childress, requires the moral agent to be free of controlling influences akin to the legal principle of voluntariness. The influence of parents on their children or of one spouse on another can be, but is by no means necessarily, much stronger than would be the case in other relationships. The ethical principle is that patients ought to be allowed to make their own decisions, whatever the outcome, to a degree commensurate with their capacity.
