Autonomy and Pregnancy: A Comparative Analysis of Compelled Obstetric Intervention

ISBN-13: 9780415423038 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 249 str.

Samantha Halliday

Opis

Technology has come to dominate the modern experience of pregnancy and childbirth, but instead of empowering pregnant women, technology has been used to identify the foetus as a second patient characterised as a distinct entity with its own needs and interests. Often, foetal and the woman s interests will be aligned, though in legal and medical discourses the two patients are frequently framed as antagonists with conflicting interests.

This book focuses upon the permissibility of encroachment on the pregnant woman s autonomy in the interests of the foetus. Drawing on the law in England & Wales, the United States of America and Germany, Samantha Halliday focuses on the tension between a pregnant woman s autonomy and medical actions taken to protect the foetus, addressing circumstances in which courts have declared medical treatment lawful in the face of the pregnant woman s refusal of consent.

As a work which calls into question the understanding of autonomy in prenatal medical care, this book will be of great use and interest to students, researchers and practitioners in medical law, comparative law, bioethics, and human rights."

Topical and contemporary, this book explores a number of current issues relating to reproduction. Critically analyzing medical ethics and the law in a variety of jurisdictions, it makes suggestions on reforming the law in the UK.

Looking at the relationship between the law and medical ethics in a number of jurisdictions, including Germany, the US, France, the Republic of Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium, the author examines:

• embryo research
• failed sterilization
• the fertility of the incompetent
• international initiatives, such as the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the application of biology and medicine.

This is a valuable book for those studying law and medical healthcare law.

Spis treści

Introduction  1. Court ordered obstetric intervention: the American case law  2. Court authorised obstetric intervention: The English case law  3. The imposition of a duty to protect the foetus upon a pregnant woman and her doctor in Germany  4. Comparative reflections upon court authorised obstetric intervention

O autorze

Samantha Halliday is an Associate Professor in Law at the University of Leeds.