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These are important ethical principles found in the Catholic Bishops “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.”

26. The free and informed consent of the person or the person’s surrogate is required for
medical treatments and procedures, except in an emergency situation when consent cannot
be obtained and there is no indication that the patient would refuse consent to the
treatment.
27. Free and informed consent requires that the person or the person’s surrogate receive all
reasonable information about the essential nature of the proposed treatment and its
benefits; its risks, side-effects, consequences, and cost; and any reasonable and morally
legitimate alternatives, including no treatment at all.
28. Each person or the person’s surrogate should have access to medical and moral
information and counseling so as to be able to form his or her conscience. The free and
informed health care decision of the person or the person’s surrogate is to be followed so
long as it does not contradict Catholic principles.
29. All persons served by Catholic health care have the right and duty to protect and preserve
their bodily and functional integrity.16 The functional integrity of the person may be
sacrificed to maintain the health or life of the person when no other morally
permissible means is available….
31. No one should be the subject of medical or genetic experimentation, even if it is
therapeutic, unless the person or surrogate first has given free and informed consent. In
instances of nontherapeutic experimentation, the surrogate can give this consent only if the
experiment entails no significant risk to the person’s well-being. Moreover, the greater the person’s incompetency and vulnerability, the greater the reasons must be to perform any
medical experimentation, especially nontherapeutic.
32. While every person is obliged to use ordinary means to preserve his or her health, no
person should be obliged to submit to a health care procedure that the person has judged,
with a free and informed conscience, not to provide a reasonable hope of benefit without
imposing excessive risks and burdens on the patient or excessive expense to family or
community.18
33. The well-being of the whole person must be taken into account in deciding about any
therapeutic intervention or use of technology. Therapeutic procedures that are likely to
cause harm or undesirable side-effects can be justified only by a proportionate benefit to
the patient.
34. Health care providers are to respect each person’s privacy and confidentiality regarding
information related to the person’s diagnosis, treatment, and care.