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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 2 of 3

Solidarity and Justice in Health and Social Care
  • Ruud ter Meulen
  • Published online:
    31 August 2017
    Print publication:
    07 September 2017
  • In this timely book, Ruud ter Meulen argues that the current trend towards individual financial responsibility for health and social care should not be at the expense of the welfare of vulnerable and dependent individuals. Written with a multidisciplinary perspective, the book presents a new view of solidarity as a distinct concept from justice with respect to health and social care. It explains the importance of collective responsibility and takes the debate on access to healthcare beyond the usual framework of justice and rights. Academics from a range of backgrounds, including sociology, ethics, philosophy and policy studies will find new perspectives on solidarity and fresh ideas from other disciplines. Policymakers will better appreciate the contribution of family carers to the well-being of dependent and vulnerable people, and the importance of the support of solidarity in these types of care.

Mental Capacity in Relationship
  • Decision-Making, Dialogue, and Autonomy
  • Camillia Kong
  • Published online:
    04 July 2017
    Print publication:
    11 May 2017
  • Recent legal developments challenge how valid the concept of mental capacity is in determining whether individuals with impairments can make decisions about their care and treatment. Kong defends a concept of mental capacity but argues that such assessments must consider how relationships and dialogue can enable or disable the decision-making abilities of these individuals. This is thoroughly investigated using an interdisciplinary approach that combines philosophy and legal analysis of the law in England and Wales, the European Court of Human Rights, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By exploring key concepts underlying mental capacity, the investigation concludes that both primary relationships and capacity assessments themselves must display key competencies to ensure that autonomy skills are promoted and encouraged. This ultimately provides scope for justifiable interventions into disabling relationships and articulates the dialogical practices that help better situate, interpret, and understand the choices and actions of individuals with impairments.

Property in the Body
  • Feminist Perspectives
  • 2nd edition
  • Donna Dickenson
  • Published online:
    24 May 2017
    Print publication:
    09 June 2017
  • We live in an era when all bodies are potentially 'feminised' by being rendered 'open-access' for biomedical research and clinical practice. Adopting a theoretically sophisticated and practical approach, Property in the Body: Feminist Perspectives rejects the notion that the sale of bodily tissue enhances the freedom of the individual through an increase in moral agency. Combining feminist theory and bioethics, it also addresses the omissions which are inherent in policy analysis and academic debate. For example, whilst women's tissue is particularly central to new biotechnologies, the requirement for female labour is largely ignored in subsequent evaluation. In its fully revised second edition, this book also considers how policies and developments vary between countries and within specific areas of biomedicine itself. Most importantly, it analyses the new and emerging technologies of this field whilst returning to the core questions and fears which are inextricably linked to the commercialisation of the body.

Merry and McCall Smith's Errors, Medicine and the Law
  • 2nd edition
  • Alan Merry, Warren Brookbanks
  • Published online:
    11 May 2017
    Print publication:
    03 April 2017
  • There is an understandable tendency or desire to attribute blame when patients are harmed by their own healthcare. However, many cases of iatrogenic harm involve little or no moral culpability. Even when blame is justified, an undue focus on one individual often deflects attention from other important factors within the inherent complexity of modern healthcare. This revised second edition advocates a rethinking of accountability in healthcare based on science, the principles of a just culture, and novel therapeutic legal processes. Updated to include many recent relevant events, including the Keystone Project in the USA and the Mid Staffordshire scandal in the UK, this book considers how the concepts of a just culture have been successfully implemented so far, and makes recommendations for best practice. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned with patient safety, medical law and the regulation of healthcare.

The Global Health Crisis
  • Ethical Responsibilities
  • Thana Cristina de Campos
  • Published online:
    31 March 2017
    Print publication:
    30 March 2017
  • Proposing a new view of global justice based on natural law, this book presents a discussion of the key ethical values in contemporary medicine and health, notably in relation to neglected diseases like malaria, Ebola and Zika. The lack of treatments for such diseases points to a global health crisis. Thana Cristina de Campos provides a general framework, based on global commutative justice, for discussion of the ethical responsibilities of international stakeholders, mapping the varying duties they have, and their content and force. She also addresses the urgent need for reforms to the international legal rules on bioethics, notably the system of intellectual property rights. These ideas will be of interest to those who are looking for a more nuanced view of the human right to health than that provided by advocates in the globalist mainstream.

Regulating Patient Safety
  • The End of Professional Dominance?
  • Oliver Quick
  • Published online:
    23 March 2017
    Print publication:
    16 March 2017
  • Systematically improving patient safety is of the utmost importance, but it is also an extremely complex and challenging task. This illuminating study evaluates the role of professionalism, regulation and law in seeking to improve safety, arguing that the 'medical dominance' model is ill-suited to this aim, which instead requires a patient-centred vision of professionalism. It brings together literatures on professions, regulation and trust, while examining the different legal mechanisms for responding to patient safety events. Oliver Quick includes an examination in areas of law which have received little attention in this context, such as health and safety law, and coronial law, and contends in particular that the active involvement of patients in their own treatment is fundamental to ensuring their safety.

Empirical Bioethics
  • Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
  • Edited by Jonathan Ives, Michael Dunn, Alan Cribb
  • Published online:
    23 February 2017
    Print publication:
    22 December 2016
  • Bioethics has long been accepted as an interdisciplinary field. The recent 'empirical turn' in bioethics is, however, creating challenges that move beyond those of simple interdisciplinary collaboration, as researchers grapple with the methodological, empirical and meta-ethical challenges of combining the normative and the empirical, as well as navigating the difficulties that can arise from attempts to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. Empirical Bioethics: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives brings together contributions from leading experts in the field which speak to these challenges, providing insight into how they can be understood and suggestions for how they might be overcome. Combining discussions of meta-ethical challenges, examples of different methodologies for integrating empirical and normative research, and reflection on the challenges of conducting and publishing such work, this book will both introduce the novice to the field and challenge the expert.

Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond
  • Barbara Prainsack, Alena Buyx
  • Published online:
    09 February 2017
    Print publication:
    19 January 2017
  • In times of global economic and political crises, the notion of solidarity is gaining new currency. This book argues that a solidarity-based perspective can help us to find new ways to address pressing problems. Exemplified by three case studies from the field of biomedicine: databases for health and disease research, personalised healthcare, and organ donation, it explores how solidarity can make a difference in how we frame problems, and in the policy solutions that we can offer.

Electronic Health Records and Medical Big Data
  • Law and Policy
  • Sharona Hoffman
  • Published online:
    30 December 2016
    Print publication:
    07 December 2016
  • This book helps readers gain an in-depth understanding of electronic health record (EHR) systems, medical big data, and the regulations that govern them. It analyzes both the shortcomings and benefits of EHR systems, exploring the law's response to the creation of these systems, highlighting gaps in the current legal framework, and developing detailed recommendations for regulatory, policy, and technological improvements. Electronic Health Records and Medical Big Data addresses not only privacy and security concerns but also other important challenges, such as those related to data quality and data analysis. In addition, the author formulates a large body of recommendations to improve the technology's safety, security, and efficacy for both clinical and secondary (such as research) uses of medical data.

Criminalising Contagion
  • Legal and Ethical Challenges of Disease Transmission and the Criminal Law
  • Edited by Catherine Stanton, Hannah Quirk
  • Published online:
    05 June 2016
    Print publication:
    09 June 2016
  • The use of the criminal law to punish those who transmit disease is a topical and controversial issue. To date, the law, and the related academic literature, has largely focused on HIV transmission. With contributions from leading practitioners and international scholars from a variety of disciplines, this volume explores the broader question of if and when it is appropriate to criminalise the transmission of contagion. The scope and application of the laws in jurisdictions such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway are considered, historical comparisons are examined, and options for the further development of the law are proposed.

The Affordable Care Act and Medicare in Comparative Context
  • Eleanor D. Kinney
  • Published online:
    05 August 2015
    Print publication:
    20 July 2015
  • Burdened with perennially rising costs and responsible for providing health insurance to more than one sixth of all Americans, Medicare in its original form is fiscally and demographically unsustainable. In light of dramatic reforms under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), this book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of Medicare. Eleanor D. Kinney explains how the ACA addresses systemic problems of cost and volume inflation, quality assurance, and fraud. Recognizing the potential for more radical change in the future, Kinney also explores the potential of Medicare to become a single-payer system. Comparisons are made with national health systems in Canada and the United Kingdom, from which the United States can draw valuable lessons. An approachable yet comprehensive account of Medicare and the ACA, this book will be invaluable for health care professionals and informed citizens.

The Right to Know and the Right Not to Know
  • Genetic Privacy and Responsibility
  • 2nd edition
  • Edited by Ruth Chadwick, Mairi Levitt, Darren Shickle
  • Published online:
    05 September 2014
    Print publication:
    04 September 2014
  • The privacy concerns discussed in the 1990s in relation to the New Genetics failed to anticipate the relevant issues for individuals, families, geneticists and society. Consumers, for example, can now buy their personal genetic information and share it online. The challenges facing genetic privacy have evolved as new biotechnologies have developed, and personal privacy is increasingly challenged by the irrepressible flow of electronic data between the personal and public spheres and by surveillance for terrorism and security risks. This book considers the right to know and the right not to know about your own and others' genomes. It discusses new privacy concerns and developments in ethical thinking, with the greater emphasis on solidarity and equity. The multidisciplinary approach covers current topics such as biobanks and forensic databases, DIY testing, group rights and accountability, the food we eat and the role of the press and the new digital media.

Criminal Law, Philosophy and Public Health Practice
  • Edited by A. M. Viens, John Coggon, Anthony S. Kessel
  • Published online:
    05 November 2013
    Print publication:
    31 October 2013
  • The goal of improving public health involves the use of different tools, with the law being one way to influence the activities of institutions and individuals. Of the regulatory mechanisms afforded by law to achieve this end, criminal law remains a perennial mechanism to delimit the scope of individual and group conduct. Utilising criminal law may promote or hinder public health goals, and its use raises a number of complex questions that merit exploration. This examination of the interface between criminal law and public health brings together international experts from a variety of disciplines, including law, criminology, public health, philosophy and health policy, in order to examine the theoretical and practical implications of using criminal law to improve public health.

Continuous Sedation at the End of Life
  • Ethical, Clinical and Legal Perspectives
  • Edited by Sigrid Sterckx, Kasper Raus, Freddy Mortier
  • Published online:
    05 September 2013
    Print publication:
    01 August 2013
  • Continuous sedation until death (sometimes referred to as terminal sedation or palliative sedation) is an increasingly common practice in end-of-life care. However, it raises numerous medical, ethical, emotional and legal concerns, such as the reducing or removing of consciousness (and thus potentially causing 'subjective death'), the withholding of artificial nutrition and hydration, the proportionality of the sedation to the symptoms, its adequacy in actually relieving symptoms rather than simply giving onlookers the impression that the patient is undergoing a painless 'natural' death, and the perception that it may be functionally equivalent to euthanasia. This book brings together contributions from clinicians, ethicists, lawyers and social scientists, and discusses guidelines as well as clinical, emotional and legal aspects of the practice. The chapters shine a critical spotlight on areas of concern and on the validity of the justifications given for the practice, including in particular the doctrine of double effect.

Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law
  • Volume 3, Medicine and Bioethics in the Theatre of the Criminal Process
  • Margaret Brazier, Suzanne Ost
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 May 2013
  • To date, little analysis exists of the criminal process's roles as a regulator of medical practice and as an arbiter of bioethics, nor whether criminal law is an appropriate forum for judging ethical medical dilemmas. The conscription of criminal law into moral controversy and the (perceived) rise in criminal investigations of medical errors sets the backdrop for this innovative historical and theoretical analysis of the relationship between medicine, bioethics and the criminal process. Case studies on abortion, end of life and the separation of conjoined twins reveal how judges grapple with bioethics in criminal cases and the impact of 'theatre' on the criminal law's response to ethically controversial medical cases. A central argument is that bioethics and criminal law are not necessarily incompatible; rather, it is the theatre surrounding interactions between bioethics and criminal law that often distorts and creates tension.

Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law
  • Volume 2, Medicine, Crime and Society
  • Edited by Danielle Griffiths, Andrew Sanders
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    31 January 2013
  • In recent years, debates have arisen concerning the encroachment of the criminal process in regulating fatal medical error, the implementation of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 and the recent release of the Director of Public Prosecution's assisted suicide policy. Consequently, questions have been raised regarding the extent to which such intervention helps, or if it in fact hinders, the sustained development of medical practice. In this collection, Danielle Griffiths and Andrew Sanders explore the operation of the criminal process in healthcare in the UK as well as in other jurisdictions, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, France and the Netherlands. Using evidence from previous cases alongside empirical data, each essay engages the reader with the debate surrounding what the appropriate role of the criminal process in healthcare should be and aims to clarify and shape policy and legislation in this under-researched area.

The Connected Self
  • The Ethics and Governance of the Genetic Individual
  • Heather Widdows
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013
  • Currently, the ethics infrastructure – from medical and scientific training to the scrutiny of ethics committees – focuses on trying to reform informed consent to do a job which it is simply not capable of doing. Consent, or choice, is not an effective ethical tool in public ethics and is particularly problematic in the governance of genetics. Heather Widdows suggests using alternative and additional ethical tools and argues that if individuals are to flourish it is necessary to recognise and respect communal and public goods as well as individual goods. To do this she suggests a two-step process – the 'ethical toolbox'. First the harms and goods of the particular situation are assessed and then appropriate practices are put in place to protect goods and prevent harms. This debate speaks to core concerns of contemporary public ethics and suggests a means to identify and prioritise public and common goods.

Human Cloning
  • Four Fallacies and their Legal Consequences
  • Kerry Lynn Macintosh
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    29 October 2012
  • Since Dolly the sheep was born, controversy has swirled around the technology of cloning. We recoil at the prospect of human copies, manufactured men and women, nefarious impersonators and resurrections of the dead. Such reactions have serious legal consequences: lawmakers have banned stem cell research along with the cloning of babies. But what if our minds have been playing tricks on us? What if everything we thought we knew about human cloning is rooted in intuition rather than fact? Human Cloning: Four Fallacies and their Legal Consequences is a rollicking ride through science, psychology and the law. Drawing on sources ranging from science fiction films to the Congressional Record, this book unmasks the role that psychological essentialism has played in bringing about cloning bans. It explains how hidden intuitions have caused conservatives and liberals to act contrary to their own most cherished ideals and values.

Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law
  • Volume 1, The Criminal Law and Bioethical Conflict: Walking the Tightrope
  • Edited by Amel Alghrani, Rebecca Bennett, Suzanne Ost
  • Published online:
    05 November 2012
    Print publication:
    01 November 2012
  • Who should define what constitutes ethical and lawful medical practice? Judges? Doctors? Scientists? Or someone else entirely? This volume analyses how effectively criminal law operates as a forum for resolving ethical conflict in the delivery of health care. It addresses key questions such as: how does criminal law regulate controversial bioethical areas? What effect, positive or negative, does the use of criminal law have when regulating bioethical conflict? And can the law accommodate moral controversy? By exploring criminal law in theory and in practice and examining the broad field of bioethics as opposed to the narrower terrain of medical ethics, it offers balanced arguments that will help readers form reasoned views on the ethical legitimacy of the invocation and use of criminal law to regulate medical and scientific practice and bioethical issues.

Privacy, Confidentiality, and Health Research
  • William W. Lowrance
  • Published online:
    05 July 2012
    Print publication:
    21 June 2012
  • The potential of the e-health revolution, increased data sharing, database linking, biobanks and new techniques such as geolocation and genomics to advance human health is immense. For the full potential to be realized, though, privacy and confidentiality will have to be dealt with carefully. Problematically, many conventional approaches to such pivotal matters as consent, identifiability, and safeguarding and security are inadequate. In many places, research is impeded by an overgrown thicket of laws, regulations, guidance and governance. The challenges are being heightened by the increasing use of biospecimens, and by the globalization of research in a world that has not globalized privacy protection. Drawing on examples from many developed countries and legal jurisdictions, the book critiques the issues, summarizes various ethics, policy, and legal positions (and revisions underway), describes innovative solutions, provides extensive references and suggests ways forward.

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