Bioethics is the Language of the Law

What happens when the language of the law becomes a vulgar tongue? What happens, more particularly, when parties to bioethical discourse are obliged to borrow in their daily controversies, the ideas, and even the language, peculiar to judicial proceedings? How suited are the habits, taste, and the language of the judicial magistrate to the political, and more particularly, the bioethical, questions of our time? This article is based on one originally published in theHastings Center Report (24, No. 4, 1994): 16-22, "Bioethics in the Language of the Law." It will appear as part of a forthcoming book on the pratice of autonomy.

A fully cited version is available from the editor of Law Quadrangel Notesor the author .