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  3. Cambridge Bioethics and Law

This series of books - formerly called Cambridge Law, Medicine and Ethics - was founded by Cambridge University Press with Alexander McCall Smith as its first editor in 2003. It focuses on the law's complex and troubled relationship with medicine across both the developed and the developing world. In the past twenty years, we have seen in many countries increasing resort to the courts by dissatisfied patients and a growing use of the courts to attempt to resolve intractable ethical dilemmas. At the same time, legislatures across the world have struggled to address the questions posed by both the successes and the failures of modern medicine, while international organisations such as the WHO and UNESCO now regularly address issues of medical law.It follows that we would expect ethical and policy questions to be integral to the analysis of the legal issues discussed in this series. The series responds to the high profile of medical law in universities, in legal and medical practice, as well as in public and political affairs. We seek to reflect the evidence that many major health-related policy and bioethics debates in the UK, Europe and the international community over the past two decades have involved a strong medical law dimension. With that in mind, we seek to address how legal analysis might have a trans-jurisdictional and international relevance. Organ retention, embryonic stem cell research, physician-assisted suicide and the allocation of resources to fund health care are but a few examples among many. The emphasis of this series is thus on matters of public concern and/or practical significance. We look for books that could make a difference to the development of medical law and enhance the role of medico-legal debate in policy circles. That is not to say that we lack interest in the important theoretical dimensions of the subject, but we aim to ensure that theoretical debate is grounded in the realities of how the law does and should interact with medicine and health care.

  • General Editors: Graeme Laurie, University of Edinburgh, Richard Ashcroft, City, University of London

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45 results in Cambridge Bioethics and Law

Page 1 of 3

The Nature and Limitations of Conscience in Healthcare

Appearance, Disability and the Law
  • Hannah Saunders
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    May 2025
    Print publication:
    31 May 2025
  • People with disfigurements often face prejudice, exclusion and discrimination in employment and across other life contexts. Law's response to this evidence is flawed both by its own limited and illogical scope and its failure to understand the perspectives of those people who may need to use it. Drawing on interviews with both people with lived experience of disfigurement and employers, the book sketches out different approaches to the complex social problem of discrimination against people with visible differences. It also asks whether, in our changing social context, law should widen its protection beyond disfigurement. Would a protected characteristic of appearance offer viable legal rights to the many millions of us who do not have a disfigurement but who are prone to a few spots, whose ears stick out more than we would like, or who are carrying an extra stone in weight?

Regulatory Violence
  • The Global Dynamics of Regulatory Experimentation in Biomedicine and Health
  • Margaret Sleeboom-Faulkner
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    April 2025
    Print publication:
    30 April 2025
  • International case-studies on regulation and science collaboration show how competition and economic pressures on the national regulators of biomedicine condition the development of jurisdictive regulations. But regulation that fails to guarantee a jurisdiction's optimal protection of patients and scientific research in favour of other interests commits foreseeable and avoidable “regulatory violence”. Even when well-intended, regulation gets caught up in the intense international competition to support public health and generate national wealth, with real-world implications. Evidence from Asia, Europe and the USA challenges the belief that regulation improves ethical practices in regenerative medicine, connects practitioners with good science, and protects patient safety. This book explains why this is so, and points to ways in which science could help us address healthcare issues in greater solidarity. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Values and Disorder in Mental Capacity Law
  • Cressida Auckland
  • Published online:
    25 October 2024
    Print publication:
    27 June 2024
  • This book draws on the disciplines of law, philosophy, and psychiatry to interrogate whether the Mental Capacity Act 2005 meets the challenges posed by mental disorder to decision-making. It is often assumed that to allow space for individuality, any test for capacity must focus only on decision-making processes and not on the substance of the values that underpin decisions. Auckland challenges this assumption, arguing that the current law serves merely as a façade, behind which judgements can be made about the nature of a person's values, free from proper scrutiny. This book provides an in-depth analysis of when and how a person's disordered values should be relevant to the determination of their capacity, offering novel suggestions for reforming the capacity test to better reflect the impact of disorder on decision-making. It also explores the implications of this analysis for people found to lack capacity, concluding that reforms to the best interest provisions are urgently needed. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

Mental Capacity, Dignity and the Power of International Human Rights
  • Julia Duffy
  • Published online:
    03 August 2023
    Print publication:
    17 August 2023
  • Personhood, in liberal philosophical and legal traditions, has long been grounded in the idea of autonomy and the right to legal capacity. However, in this book, Julia Duffy questions these assumptions and shows how such beliefs exclude and undermine the rights of adults with cognitive disability. Instead, she reinterprets the right to legal capacity through the principle of the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights. In doing so, she compellingly argues that dignity and not autonomy ought to be the basis of personhood. Using illustrative case studies, Duffy demonstrates that the key human rights values of autonomy, dignity and equality can only be achieved by fulfilling a range of interdependent human rights. With this innovative book challenging common assumptions about human rights and personhood, Duffy leads the way in ensuring civil, economic, political, social, and cultural inclusion for adults with cognitive disabilities.

Consent for Medical Treatment of Trans Youth
  • Steph Jowett
  • Published online:
    04 October 2022
    Print publication:
    06 October 2022
  • Access to medical treatment for trans youth occupies a haphazard and dynamic legal landscape. In this comprehensive scholarly analysis of the historical and current legal principles, Steph Jowett examines the medico-legal nexus of regulation of this healthcare in Australia and in England and Wales. This is informed by an in-depth discussion of the medical literature on treatment for trans youth, including clinical guidelines, the outcomes of treatment and outcomes for trans youth who are unable to be treated. With illustrative examples and clear language, Jowett argues that legal barriers to clinical practice should be congruent with and reflect the current state of medical knowledge. Not only does Jowett assess the extent to which key legal decisions have been consistent with medical knowledge in the past, but she offers a nuanced, comparative perspective that will inform reform efforts in the future.

Reimagining the Court of Protection
  • Access to Justice in Mental Capacity Law
  • Jaime Lindsey
  • Published online:
    17 September 2022
    Print publication:
    15 September 2022
  • As one of the first researchers authorised to observe hearings and access court files at the Court of Protection, Jaime Lindsey offers an original account and analysis of the workings of this court. Using data collected with the approval from the senior judiciary of the Court of Protection and the Ministry of Justice, this innovative book combines empirical data with theoretical and normative analysis. It takes a socio-legal approach to understanding how the Mental Capacity Act operates in practice to achieve access to justice and situates current debates within an international context, showing how other jurisdictions have been guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Furthering scholarship across several fields including access to justice, healthcare law and procedural justice theory, this is a timely and pioneering book that argues for a reimagining of the Court of Protection.

AI in eHealth
  • Human Autonomy, Data Governance and Privacy in Healthcare
  • Edited by Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci, Michael Lowery Wilson, Mark Fenwick, Nikolaus Forgó, Till Bärnighausen
  • Published online:
    08 September 2022
    Print publication:
    15 September 2022
  • The emergence of digital platforms and the new application economy are transforming healthcare and creating new opportunities and risks for all stakeholders in the medical ecosystem. Many of these developments rely heavily on data and AI algorithms to prevent, diagnose, treat, and monitor diseases and other health conditions. A broad range of medical, ethical and legal knowledge is now required to navigate this highly complex and fast-changing space. This collection brings together scholars from medicine and law, but also ethics, management, philosophy, and computer science, to examine current and future technological, policy and regulatory issues. In particular, the book addresses the challenge of integrating data protection and privacy concerns into the design of emerging healthcare products and services. With a number of comparative case studies, the book offers a high-level, global, and interdisciplinary perspective on the normative and policy dilemmas raised by the proliferation of information technologies in a healthcare context.

Embodied Narratives
  • Protecting Identity Interests through Ethical Governance of Bioinformation
  • Emily Postan
  • Published online:
    02 July 2022
    Print publication:
    14 July 2022
  • Increasing quantities of information about our health, bodies, and biological relationships are being generated by health technologies, research, and surveillance. This escalation presents challenges to us all when it comes to deciding how to manage this information and what should be disclosed to the very people it describes. This book establishes the ethical imperative to take seriously the potential impacts on our identities of encountering bioinformation about ourselves. Emily Postan argues that identity interests in accessing personal bioinformation are currently under-protected in law and often linked to problematic bio-essentialist assumptions. Drawing on a picture of identity constructed through embodied self-narratives, and examples of people's encounters with diverse kinds of information, Postan addresses these gaps. This book provides a robust account of the source, scope, and ethical significance of our identity-related interests in accessing – and not accessing – bioinformation about ourselves, and the need for disclosure practices to respond appropriately. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Sharing Linked Data for Health Research
  • Toward Better Decision Making
  • Carolyn Adams, Judy Allen, Felicity Flack
  • Published online:
    02 June 2022
    Print publication:
    09 June 2022
  • Health research around the world relies on access to data, and much of the most valuable, reliable, and comprehensive data collections are held by governments. These collections, which contain data on whole populations, are a powerful tool in the hands of researchers, especially when they are linked and analyzed, and can help to address “wicked problems” in health and emerging global threats such as COVID-19. At the same time, these data collections contain sensitive information that must only be used in ways that respect the values, interests, and rights of individuals and their communities. Sharing Linked Data for Health Research provides a template for allowing research access to government data collections in a regulatory environment designed to build social license while supporting the research enterprise.

International Perspectives on End-of-Life Law Reform
  • Politics, Persuasion and Persistence
  • Edited by Ben P. White, Lindy Willmott
  • Published online:
    02 December 2021
    Print publication:
    09 December 2021
  • Much has been written about whether end-of-life law should change and what that law should be. However, the barriers and facilitators of such changes – law reform perspectives – have been virtually ignored. Why do so many attempts to change the law fail but others are successful? International Perspectives on End-of-Life Law Reform aims to address this question by drawing on ten case studies of end-of-life law reform from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and Australia. Written by leading end-of-life scholars, the book's chapters blend perspectives from law, medicine, bioethics and sociology to examine sustained reform efforts to permit assisted dying and change the law about withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. Findings from this book shed light not only on changing end-of-life law, but provide insight more generally into how and why law reform succeeds in complex and controversial social policy areas.

The Human Embryo In Vitro
  • Breaking the Legal Stalemate
  • Catriona A. W. McMillan
  • Published online:
    18 March 2021
    Print publication:
    01 April 2021
  • The Human Embryo in vitro explores the ways in which UK law engages with embryonic processes under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended), the intellectual basis of which has not been reconsidered for almost thirty years. McMillan argues that in regulating 'the embryo' – that is, a processual liminal entity in itself - the law is regulating for uncertainty. This book offers a fuller understanding of how complex biological processes of development and growth can be better aligned with a legal framework that purports to pay respect to the embryo while also allowing its destruction. To do so it employs an anthropological concept, liminality, which is itself concerned with revealing the dynamics of process. The implications of this for contemporary regulation of artificial reproduction are fully explored, and recommendations are offered for international regimes on how they can better align biological reality with social policy and law.

Beyond Autonomy
  • Limits and Alternatives to Informed Consent in Research Ethics and Law
  • Edited by David G. Kirchhoffer, Bernadette J. Richards
  • Published online:
    20 September 2019
    Print publication:
    03 October 2019
  • Respect for autonomy has become a fundamental principle in human research ethics. Nonetheless, this principle and the associated process of obtaining informed consent do have limitations. This can lead to some groups, many of them vulnerable, being left understudied. This book considers these limitations and contributes through legal and philosophical analyses to the search for viable approaches to human research ethics. It explores the limitations of respect for autonomy and informed consent both in law and through the examination of cases where autonomy is lacking (infants), diminished (addicts), and compromised (low socio-economic status). It examines alternative and complementary concepts to overcome the limits of respect for autonomy, including beneficence, dignity, virtue, solidarity, non-exploitation, vulnerability and self-ownership. It takes seriously the importance of human relationality and community in qualifying, tempering and complementing autonomy to achieve the ultimate end of human research - the good of humankind.

Trust in Medicine
  • Its Nature, Justification, Significance, and Decline
  • Markus Wolfensberger, Anthony Wrigley
  • Published online:
    19 August 2019
    Print publication:
    22 August 2019
  • Over the past decades, public trust in medical professionals has steadily declined. This decline of trust and its replacement by ever tighter regulations is increasingly frustrating physicians. However, most discussions of trust are either abstract philosophical discussions or social science investigations not easily accessible to clinicians. The authors, one a surgeon-turned-philosopher, the other an analytical philosopher working in medical ethics, joined their expertise to write a book which straddles the gap between the practical and theoretical. Using an approach grounded in the methods of conceptual analysis found in analytical philosophy which also draws from approaches to medical diagnosis, the authors have conceived an internally coherent and comprehensive definition of trust to help elucidate the concept and explain its decline in the medical context. This book should appeal to all interested in the ongoing debate about the decline of trust - be it as medical professionals, medical ethicists, medical lawyers, or philosophers.

Personalised Medicine, Individual Choice and the Common Good
  • Edited by Britta van Beers, Sigrid Sterckx, Donna Dickenson
  • Published online:
    02 November 2018
    Print publication:
    22 November 2018
  • Hippocrates famously advised doctors 'it is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has'. Yet 2,500 years later, 'personalised medicine', based on individual genetic profiling and the achievements of genomic research, claims to be revolutionary. In this book, experts from a wide range of disciplines critically examine this claim. They expand the discussion of personalised medicine beyond its usual scope to include many other highly topical issues, including: human nuclear genome transfer ('three-parent IVF'), stem cell-derived gametes, private umbilical cord blood banking, international trade in human organs, biobanks such as the US Precision Medicine Initiative, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, health and fitness self-monitoring.Although these technologies often prioritise individual choice, the original ideal of genomic research saw the human genome as 'the common heritage of humanity'. The authors question whether personalised medicine actually threatens this conception of the common good.

Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies
  • New Horizons
  • Amel Alghrani
  • Published online:
    02 November 2018
    Print publication:
    22 November 2018
  • Reproductive science continues to revolutionise reproduction and propel us further into uncharted territories. The revolution signalled by the birth of Louise Brown after IVF in 1978, prompted governments across Europe and beyond into regulatory action. Forty years on, there are now dramatic and controversial developments in new reproductive technologies. Technologies such as uterus transplantation that may enable unisex gestation and babies gestated by dad; or artificial wombs that will completely divorce reproduction from the human body and allow babies to be gestated by machines, usher in a different set of legal, ethical and social questions to those that arose from IVF. This book revisits the regulation of assisted reproduction and advances the debate on from the now much-discussed issues that arose from IVF, offering a critical analysis of the regulatory challenges raised by new reproductive technologies on the horizon.

Euthanasia, Ethics and Public Policy
  • An Argument against Legalisation
  • 2nd edition
  • John Keown
  • Published online:
    28 September 2018
    Print publication:
    18 October 2018
  • This book argues against the legalisation of voluntary euthanasia and/or physician-assisted suicide on the ground that, even if they were ethically defensible in certain 'hard cases', neither could be effectively controlled by law. It maintains that the experience of legalisation in the Netherlands, Belgium and Oregon lends support to the two 'slippery slope' arguments against legalisation, the 'empirical' and the 'logical'. The empirical argument challenges the feasibility of drafting and enforcing adequate safeguards against abuse and mistake; the logical argument shows that acceptance of the case for euthanasia in the case of suffering patients who request it logically involves acceptance of euthanasia for suffering patients who are unable to request it, such as infants and those with advanced dementia.

Bioethics in Action
  • Edited by Françoise Baylis, Alice Dreger
  • Published online:
    11 May 2018
    Print publication:
    17 May 2018
  • Speaking from and to the growing movement among academics to become involved with 'socially-engaged' work, this volume presents first-person case studies of attempts to fix serious ethical problems in medical practice and research. It highlights the critical difference between the pundit approach to bioethics and the interventional approach - the talkers and the doers - and points to how abused and damaged the doers often end up. Chapters cover a diverse set of topics, including the troubling influence of for-profit businesses on public health policy, the politics of exposing histories of unjust medical research, the challenges of patient rights' work in sexuality and reproduction, collaborations between NGOs and academics, methods for changing entrenched yet harmful medical practices, engaging public policy through educating governmental leaders, and whistleblowing. The trending interest in the interplay of academia and advocacy and the growing importance of 'socially-engaged' work by academics make this a timely and much-needed resource.

Self-Ownership, Property Rights, and the Human Body
  • A Legal and Philosophical Analysis
  • Muireann Quigley
  • Published online:
    04 April 2018
    Print publication:
    19 April 2018
  • How ought the law to deal with novel challenges regarding the use and control of human biomaterials? As it stands the law is ill-equipped to deal with these. Quigley argues that advancing biotechnology means that the law must confront and move boundaries which it has constructed; in particular, those which delineate property from non-property in relation to biomaterials. Drawing together often disparate strands of property discourse, she offers a philosophical and legal re-analysis of the law in relation to property in the body and biomaterials. She advances a new defence, underpinned by self-ownership, of the position that persons ought to be seen as the prima facie holders of property rights in their separated biomaterials. This book will appeal to those interested in medical and property law, philosophy, bioethics, and health policy amongst others.

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
  • Lessons from Belgium
  • Edited by David Albert Jones, Chris Gastmans, Calum MacKellar
  • Published online:
    21 September 2017
    Print publication:
    21 September 2017
  • Examining the evidence from Belgium – one of only five countries where euthanasia is practised legally – an international panel of experts considers the implications of legalised euthanasia and assisted suicide. Looking at the issue from an international perspective, the authors have written an invaluable in-depth analysis of the ethical aspects of this complex area. The discussion forms a solid foundation for informed debate about assisted dying. With contributors from a broad range of disciplines, this book is ideal for students, academics, legislators and anyone interested in legal, medical, social and philosophical ethics. A vital and timely examination of a growing phenomenon and one of the most challenging ethical questions of our time.

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