PERSON
Rebecca S. Dresser
1952–
Law · Bioethics · Research ethics
American legal scholar and bioethicist whose teaching and scholarship address research ethics, end-of-life care, genetics, assisted reproduction, patient advocacy, and the representation of people affected by biomedical research and clinical decisions.
At a Glance
- Primary fields
- Law; Bioethics; Research ethics
- Intellectual streams
- Research ethics & consent; Law & public policy; Clinical ethics & professionalism
- Modes of contribution
- Legal / policy; Critical / corrective; Pedagogical; Public / translational
01 / LIFE & CONTEXT
Rebecca S. Dresser's work asks how ethical and legal protections look from the position of the person expected to live with them. A legal scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, later professor emerita, she began teaching medical and law students in the 1980s. Her subjects included end-of-life care, human-subjects research, genetics, assisted reproduction, and the changing regulation of medicine.
02 / KEY CONTRIBUTIONS
Dresser has examined consent, vulnerability, investigational treatment, and research involving people with impaired decision-making capacity. She presses against the assumption that compliance with a rule necessarily captures participants' interests. Her writing on serious illness has also brought patient experience into conversation with professional bioethical expertise, asking what established analysis may overlook when its authors have not occupied the patient's place.
03 / HISTORICAL ROLE
As research ethics and health law matured, Dresser kept their attention on those affected by the rules. This participant-centered scrutiny complicates any easy equation of institutional oversight with ethical adequacy.