ABSTRACT
This chapter examines whether liberal principles are adopted in medical ethics and the law. It shows that principles of autonomy and utility underlie the leading ethical position but are less influential in medical law. The chapter discusses some models that apply communitarian conceptions in the specific context of genetics. One of the most prominent principles in English medical law is consent. The attitude to family members in medical law manifests itself in the analysis of the third component of consent, that of voluntariness. The central argument in this book is that family members should gain more recognition than they currently receive in medical law and ethics. Despite the tendency to focus on a patient-centred approach in medical law some bioethicists express a family-based approach in respect of the issue of communication of genetic information to family members. To conclude, the theoretical model of the familial relationship established in this book is based on liberal, communitarian, and ethics-of-care principles.
