Rebecca Dresser

Biographic Data

ID7169209
NAMERebecca Dresser
GIVEN NAMESRebecca
FAMILY NAMEDresser
SIGNATUREDRESSER R
AFFILIATIONSWashington University in St. Louis
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS68
TOTAL CITATIONS0
AUTHOR COUNT68
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1980
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX0

  • Banning Gender‐Affirming Treatment for Minors: The Supreme Court Speaks

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2026

    In United States v. Skrmetti, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Tennessee law prohibiting certain medical procedures for the treatment of minors with gender dysphoria. A majority of the justices agreed that the law failed to violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection provision. Because the law failed to distinguish among patients on the basis of sex, they said, it required only a rational basis to survive constitu…

  • Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine: How Conscience Protections Preserved Mifepristone Access

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2025

    People in the bioethics field generally agree that clinicians should have reasonable freedom to practice according to their moral and religious convictions. But this general position leaves room for debate over how much freedom objecting clinicians ought to have. Some commentators contend that exemptions from criminal, civil, and professional consequences for conscientious refusals to provide care impose too many burdens on patients, colleagues, …

  • Residency Requirements for Medical Aid in Dying

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2024

    In 1997, when Oregon became the first U.S. jurisdiction authorizing medical aid in dying (MAID), its law included a requirement that patients be legal residents of the state. Other U.S. jurisdictions legalizing MAID followed Oregon in adopting residency requirements. Recent litigation challenges the legality, as well as the justification, for such requirements. Facing such challenges, Oregon and Vermont eliminated their MAID residency requirement…

  • Medical choices and changing selves

    Rebecca DresserARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2023

  • Cruzan after Dobbs: What Remains of the Constitutional Right to Refuse Treatment

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2023

    In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court removed constitutional protection from the individual's right to end a pregnancy. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization , the Court invalidated previous rulings protecting that right as part of the individual liberty and privacy interests embedded in the U.S. Constitution. Now, many observers are speculating about the fate of other rights founded on those interests. The Dobbs ruling conflicts with the Cou…

  • Ourselves, with Dementia

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2022

    Fear of dementia leads some people to demand an opportunity to choose death over life with the illness. They want the power to make advance euthanasia directives and to refuse hand feeding at some point in the dementia process. But the choices we make in advance aren't always suited to the people we become. Experts and family members say people with dementia often adapt, becoming content with their lives. People should care about their future sel…

  • The UN Challenge to Guardianship and Surrogate Decision‐Making

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2022

    In 2006, the United Nations issued the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention, together with an accompanying commentary, urges governments to abandon laws authorizing guardianship and substitute decision‐making for people with intellectual disabilities and to replace them with supportive decision‐making laws that give all individuals the freedom to make choices reflecting their “will and preferences.” Although criti…

  • The Limited Value of Dementia‐Specific Advance Directives

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2021

    Many people are worried about developing dementia, fearing the losses and burdens that accompany the condition. Dementia‐specific advance directives are intended to address dementia's progressive effects, allowing individuals to express their treatment preferences for different stages of the condition. But enthusiasm for dementia‐specific advance directives should be tempered by recognition of the legal, ethical, and practical issues they raise. …

  • Dementia and the Death Penalty

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2019

    During its 2018–2019 term, the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of executing a prisoner with dementia. In Madison v. Alabama, the Court ruled that, in certain circumstances, executing a prisoner with dementia violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Vernon Madison was sentenced to death for killing a police officer in 1985. After many years on Alabama’s death row, he had a series of strokes …

  • Advance Directives and Discrimination against People with Dementia

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2018

    In the article “On Avoiding Deep Dementia,” Norman Cantor defends a position that I suspect many readers share. In my years writing and speaking on advance directives and dementia, I've found that most people support one of two positions. They are convinced either that advance choices should control the treatment dementia patients receive or that the welfare of a person with dementia should sometimes take priority over earlier choices. As Cantor …

  • Research Information for Reasonable People

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2018

    In 2017, federal officials issued a revised version of the Common Rule, the federal regulations that govern much of the human subject research conducted in the United States. Two provisions on information disclosure have reportedly provoked confusion among researchers and people responsible for research oversight. These provisions incorporate the familiar and foundational legal concept known as the reasonable person standard, applying this to res…

  • Experimentation without Representation

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEIRB Ethics and Human Research2018

  • On Legalizing Physician‐Assisted Death for Dementia

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2017

    Last November, soon after Colorado became the latest state to authorize physician‐assisted suicide, National Public Radio's The Diane Rehm Show devoted a segment to legalization of “physician assistance in dying,” a label that refers to both physician‐assisted suicide and voluntary active euthanasia. Although the segment initially focused on PAD in the context of terminal illness in general, it wasn't long before PAD's potential application to de…

  • Inclusion, Access, and Civility in Public Bioethics

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2017

    I could tell many war stories about my experience serving on the President's Council on Bioethics—one of the most controversial national bioethics commissions so far—but I want to focus instead on how the experience influenced my views on bioethics, politics, and the potential contributions of national commissions. The executive order that established the Council directed it to consider policy questions, but it spoke primarily of providing a foru…

  • Silent Partners

    Rebecca DresserBOOKSilent Partners2016

    Scientists and ethicists often speak of subjects as partners in research, but the reality is quite different. Experienced subjects are rarely appointed to the committees that create guidelines for ethical research or the committees that review individual studies to determine whether they meet ethical and regulatory standards. Yet experienced research subjects can make valuable contributions to research ethics. People who have been in studies know…

  • Embedded Ethics in Developing-Country Research

    Rebecca DresserBOOKSilent Partners2016

    This chapter considers subject inclusion in multinational studies. Many studies are initiated and financed by wealthy countries but are conducted in low-income countries. Community engagement and participatory research have a long history in developing-country research. Over the years, there has been impressive progress in including experienced subjects and other community members in research activities and in integrating research staff into comm…

  • Participants as Partners in Genetic Research: Human Subjects and Research Ethics

    Rebecca DresserBOOKSilent Partners2016

    This chapter focuses on subject-centered developments in genetic research. Modern genetic research requires scientists to collect, store, and study DNA samples and health information from thousands of people. In the past, researchers have been allowed to use DNA samples and information without consent. Researchers have not been required to explain study results to subjects, nor have they been required to compensate people who contribute samples a…

  • Medicare and Advance Planning: The Importance of Context

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2016

    In January 2016, a long‐delayed Medicare change took effect. The Medicare program will now reimburse doctors for time they spend talking with patients about end‐of‐life care. This is the move that Sarah Palin and other Affordable Care Act critics said would authorize government “death panels” to decide whether older Americans should live or die. Today virtually no one buys into Palin's death panel rhetoric. But many people do think the Medicare c…

  • “Right to Try” Laws: The Gap between Experts and Advocates

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2015

    The year 2014 brought a new development in the bioethics “laboratory of the states.” Five states adopted “right to try” laws intended to promote terminally ill patients' access to investigational drugs. Many more state legislatures are now considering such laws. The campaign for right to try laws is the latest move in an ongoing effort to give seriously ill patients access to drugs whose safety and effectiveness remain largely unknown. Although s…

  • Toward a Humane Death with Dementia

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2014

    In this issue, Paul Menzel and M. Colette Chandler‐Cramer propose a novel advance directive. Besides giving competent people the opportunity to refuse future life‐prolonging medical interventions, they say, advance directives should give people the opportunity to refuse ordinary food and water if they later experience severe dementia . This proposal is both appealing and unsettling. It is appealing because it offers some relief to people seeking …

  • Drugs and the Death Penalty

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2014

    In October 2013, Missouri officials abandoned a plan to execute a convicted murderer using a novel method—an injection of propofol. The name of this drug became a household word after propofol played a role in singer Michael Jackson's death, but this has been a popular therapeutic drug for many years. Clinicians use it in intensive care, surgery, and common procedures like colonoscopy. After deciding to halt the execution, Missouri governor Jay N…

  • Drug Compounding, Drug Safety, and the First Amendment

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2013

    In September 2012, news broke of a developing drug disaster in the United States. Health authorities had linked a fungal meningitis outbreak to a contaminated steroid made by a company called the New England Compounding Center. The contaminated steroid was a compounded drug that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, differing from three others that had been approved in that it lacked preservatives present in those agents. Fac…

  • A Status Elevation for Great Apes

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2012

  • The Varieties of Consent

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2011

  • Bioethics and Cancer: When the Professional Becomes Personal

    Open AccessRebecca DresserARTICLEThe Hastings Center Report2011