To follow are a few reasons why the medical community can benefit from the legal profession's perspective. Trailblazing Considerable work has already been done in law to identify, assess, and rectify problems that result from outdated ideas about gender. The possibility of fruitful analogies and applicable critical insights between the disciplines is one way in which legal commentary can provide a helpful contribution to a medical journal that seeks new understandings of gender and medicine. Moreover, numerous feminist thinkers have been trained in law, and they offer a rich resource for this journal. The Professional Mandate of the Law Legal commentary can contribute to medicine in part because of the professional mandate of the law.
Law plays a crucial role in articulating and implementing social norms.
Because gender raises fundamental issues of fairness, equality, and justice, it is an important variable in the articulation of standards of behavior and treatment. Advances in medical technology and research have posed new questions and have rendered many previously easy choices highly debatable. The increased diversity of American values also stimulates controversy. Medical decisions are often fodder for both newsrooms and courtrooms because they involve not simply dollars or widgets but profound and fundamental rights. Because these rights are protected at a constitutional level, lawyers are inevitably involved in medical policy and practice.