Professor Sawicki joined the Loyola faculty in 2009. Her primary fields of expertise are bioethics and health law. Her scholarship evaluates recent developments in health law from two perspectives: one through the lens of legal academic inquiry, and the other grounded in ethical theory generally with particular focus on bioethics. As a legal scholar, she considers whether legislative, judicial, and policy developments in the medical and public health arenas are consistent with existing jurisprudence - for example, whether traditional tort law conceptions of injury support the recognition of novel torts such as wrongful birth and wrongful living. In addition, she uses her training in bioethics and moral philosophy to consider these developments from a broader normative perspective - that is, by identifying the ethical principles underlying social and professional norms, and determining the extent to which lawmakers and policymakers may rightfully take these norms into account. Professor Sawicki received both a JD degree and a Masters in Bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004. After graduation, she clerked for the Honorable J. Curtis Joyner of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and practiced law with Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen in Philadelphia. During this period she also served as a lecturer in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Immediately prior to joining Loyola, Professor Sawicki was the inaugural George Sharswood Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she taught bioethics and public health law. Education: B.A., magna cum laude, Brown University, 2000 M.Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 2004 J.D., cum laude, University of Pennsylvania Law School, 2004 Courses Taught: Bioethics and the Law Introduction to Health Law Torts LLM Seminar
Articles
Informed Consent Beyond the Physician-Patient Encounter: Tort Law Implications of Extra-Clinical Decision Support Tools., Annals of Health Law (2012)
Patient Protection and Decision Aid Quality: Regulatory and Tort Law Approaches, Arizona Law Review (2012)
The Hollow Promise of Freedom of Conscience, Cardozo Law Review (2012)
Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson asserted that no law "ought to be dearer to...
The Abortion Informed Consent Debate: More Light, Less Heat., Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy (2011)
There Must Be A Means: The Backward Jurisprudence of Baze v. Rees, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2010)
The Supreme Court’s plurality opinion in Baze v. Rees begins with a seemingly simple assertion...
Unpublished Papers
A Theory of Discipline for Professional Misconduct, Scholarship at Penn Law (2009)
State medical boards derive their licensure and disciplinary authority from the police powers reserved to...
Compliance With Advance Directives: Wrongful Living and Tort Law Incentives (with Holly Fernandez Lynch and Michele Mathes), Scholarship at Penn Law (2008)
Modern ethical and legal norms generally require that deference be accorded to patients' decisions regarding...