One of the core issues in medical ethics has been and still is
autonomy, people's right to make their own self-regarding choices
in situations where more than one option is available. Depending on the
case, these choices may be influenced by personal life history,
one's ethical and other values, and one's future
expectancies. A professional soccer player may risk an operation, which
for a less athletic individual would represent an unnecessary risk that
might jeopardize her ability to even walk. Saying no to painkillers may
sound irrational to those who do not see anything ennobling in
avoidable suffering, and preferring homeopathic medicine to more
evidence-based medicine may lead others to seriously doubt the logic of
one's thinking. But although these situations may be
difficult,1 they seldom lead to an impasse. Even if serious
value conflicts emerge in these patient–medical personnel
encounters, they can be overcome by the fact that, in Western
countries, honoring patients' autonomy has been widely accepted as
part of medical professionalism.