Legal Update 2025: Top 10 Legal Developments in Bioethics and Public Health

Abstract: Each year brings important legal developments related to bioethics. This panel discusses the latest legal trends of significance for ASBH members. This annual panel has been well-attended and popular for 14 years. This year’s panel will again be interdisciplinary and diverse – both in terms of topics covered and in terms of panelist areas of expertise (law, medicine, philosophy), geographic regions, gender, and institutional affiliations.

In keeping with the conference theme, the panelists will address public discourse in the intersections of law with bioethics, public health, and society through a review of the major legal developments in areas with a range of bioethical concerns in a changing landscape of judicial, legislative, and administrative decisions and actions in bioethics-related law.

Relevant recent legal developments include those affecting our diverse communities, delineating challenges and potential paths forward for individuals, health professionals, and populations at the state, federal, and international levels. Panelists will cover areas of interest to the diverse areas of expertise of the ASBH audience, representing a breadth of key areas in law and bioethics.

Major legal developments addressed include:
• Reproduction, assisted reproductive technologies, genomics and issues concerning vulnerable populations, e.g., individuals with disabilities (Panelist 1)
• Aid in dying/medically-assisted death, and withdrawal/withholding of life-sustaining treatment (including DNR and POLST orders) (Panelist 2)
• Brain death, futility/non-beneficial treatment, informed consent, conscience-based objections (Panelist 3)
• Public health law, government regulation of behavior, and research ethics (Panelist 4)

All ASBH attendees are invited to discuss these emerging legal trends.

Keywords: Law, Public Health