Bioethics and Law: The Second Stage – Balancing Intelligent Consent and Individual Autonomy

The principle that government rests on the consent of the governed eventually spread beyond the political arena to alter such private behavior as the relationship between physician and patient. This Article examines the successive transformations of the principle of consent as it has developed in the field of law and bioethics from bare consent to informed consent, and then, more strikingly, to beyond informed consent. This most recent form of the principle may prove to be every bit as revolutionary as the idea of popular sovereignty in 17th century England