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The author offers a defense of the Texas Advance Directive Law (TADA). Topics covered include how TADA's approach achieves a balance that recognizes the physician's duty to provide competent and professional care that helps the patient and the value of respecting the preferences of patients and surrogates and how it offers a method for overriding futility judgments made by individual providers while leaving medical decisions to people who are trained and experienced at making them.

The author discusses the ethics of rescue medicine. The author states that in tragic situations, rescue medicine renews hope and has the power to restore faith in human beings. The author notes that despite strong positive emotions, rescue efforts provoke chaos. The author mentions that when rescue medicine prevents other values such as long-term care and universal access to health care, it becomes unjust and an irrational system for allocating health care.

The author comments on ethical issues concerning kidney commercialization. Topics covered include the views of people opposing human organ commercialization as well as harms associated with kidney sales. Also mentioned are the different approaches to address problems associated with the proliferation of kidney sales in some countries.

Comments on Catherine Myser's article 'Differences from Somewhere: The Normativity of Whiteness in Bioethics in the United States.' Reason why the sources of normativity matter; Views of Myser on whiteness; Determination of the merit of favorable versus unfavorable interpretations.

The article discusses expanded access programs describing the usage of experimental therapy that benefits research participants. Topics discussed information on Food and Drug Administration's approval of nusinersen for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), justification for patient selection criteria on the bases of utilitarian and deontological arguments, and incremental improvement in well-being.