This work deals with the continuing debate between doctors, lawyers and medical ethicists regarding the provision of modern health care. It offers a wide-ranging treatment of medical law and examines the many ethical issues which beset medicine today. This new edition has been revised and expanded to reflect current debates, including an increase in the coverage of the treatment of transsexualism, additional material on the criminal responsibility of doctors and coverage of persistent vegetative state cases. Written in a clear, concise style, the book offers a broad overview of medical law and its interaction with medical ethics. Both authors are leading authorities in their respective fields and provide the reader with an analysis of ethical concepts based on positive legal principles and court decisions, describing what actually happens in practice rather than what should happen, in this important field.