Abstract

The need for a legal regulation of biomedical and socio-healthcare practices arising from scientific and technological progress is looked upon with great urgency by contemporary society, but is particularly problematic owing to the complexity of issues at scientific level, to the plurality of moral viewpoints and to the nonhomogeneous consideration of the role and the function of law in bioethics. The articles in this focus analyse the relationships between bioethics and biolaw and the possible models of regulation present in theoretical reflection, placing them in relation to a number of solutions adopted in jurisprudential and legislative practice, with specific attention to advance directives.