Current Legal Issues, like its sister volume Current Legal Problems, is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year, leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloquium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and practice.
Law and Bioethics, the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series, contains a broad range of essays by scholars interested in the interactions between law and bioethics. It includes studies examining the regulation of stem cell research, human rights and bioethics, the regulation of reproductive technologies, and distributive justice in healthcare and pandemic planning.

The Sunday Times top ten bestseller... 'Nobody knew what was going on behind those doors. We were human toys. Just a piece of meat for someone to play with.' Barbara O'Hare was just 12 when she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, Aston Hall, in 1971. From a troubled home, she'd hoped she would find sanctuary there. But within hours, Barbara was tied down, drugged with sodium amytal - a truth-telling drug - and then abused by its head physician, Dr Kenneth Milner. The terrifying drug experimentation and relentless abuse that lasted throughout her stay damaged her for life. But somehow, Barbara clung on to her inner strength and eventually found herself leading a campaign to demand answers for potentially hundreds of victims. A shocking account of how vulnerable children were preyed upon by the doctor entrusted with their care, and why it must never happen again.

Whether you are a doctor, nurse, student, or otherwise interested reader, the stories here will help you to understand how medicine works and how medical error can happen. The lifelong process of learning that is a medical career requires healthcare workers to find a way to live through these setbacks without either becoming too adept at putting them 'down to experience' and forgetting their social significance, or 'burning out' and leaving medicine. The stories and discussions here present detailed narratives, analyses, and reflections on medical errors through actions, omissions, and misunderstandings. They offer a uniquely honest perspective on the social implications of medical error and will enable healthcare workers at all levels to analyse and learn from it without losing sight of its impact.

As neuroscience continues to reveal the biological basis of human thought and behavior, what impact will this have on legal theory and practice? The emerging field of neurolaw seeks to address this question, but doing so adequately requires confronting difficult philosophical issues surrounding the nature of mind, free will, rationality, and responsibility. In The Philosophical Foundations of Neurolaw, Martin Roth claims that the central philosophical issue facing neurolaw is whether we can reconcile the conception of ourselves as free, rational, and responsible agents with the conception of ourselves as complex bio-chemical machines. Roth argues that we can reconcile these conceptions. To show this, Roth develops and defends an account of free will that identifies free will with the capacity to respond to rational demands, and he argues that this capacity is at the foundation of our thinking about responsibility. Roth also shows how the mind sciences can explain this capacity, thus revealing that a purely physical system can have the kind of free will that is relevant to responsible agency. Along the way, Roth critiques a number of arguments that purport to show that the kind of reconciliation provided is not possible. Roth concludes that though we should rethink our legal system in important ways, both in light of his account of free will and what neuroscience is poised to reveal, neuroscience does not threaten the law's core commitment to responsible agency.

Two towering figures in the field of health care policy analysis, Theodore R. Marmor and Rudolf Klein, reflect on a lifetime of thought in this wide-ranging collection of essays published in the wake of President Obama's health care reform. Presented as a kind of dialogue between the two, the book offers their recent writings on the future of Medicare; universal health insurance; conflicts of interest among physicians, regulators, and patients; and many other topics.

This book examines the idea of a fundamental entitlement to health and healthcare from a human rights perspective. The volume is based on a particular conceptual reasoning that balances critical thinking and pragmatism in the context of a universal right to health. Thus, the primary focus of the book is the relationship or contrast between rights-based discourse/jurisprudential arguments and real-life healthcare contexts. The work sets out the constraints that are imposed on a universal right to health by practical realities such as economic hardship in countries, lack of appropriate governance, and lack of support for the implementation of this right through appropriate resource allocation. It queries the degree to which the existence of this legally enshrined right and its application in instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) can be more than an ephemeral aspiration but can, actually, sustain, promote, and instil good practice. It further asks if social reality and the inequalities that present themselves therein impede the implementation of laudable human rights, particularly within marginalised communities and cadres of people. It deliberates on what states and global bodies do, or could do, in practical terms to ensure that such rights are moved beyond the aspirational and become attainable and implementable. Divided into three parts, the first analyses the notion of a universal inalienable right to health(care) from jurisprudential, anthropological, legal, and ethical perspectives. The second part considers the translation of international human rights norms into specific jurisdictional healthcare contexts. With a global perspective it includes countries with very different legal, economic, and social contexts. Finally, the third part summarises the lessons learnt and provides a pathway for future action. The book will be an invaluable resource for students, academics, and policymakers working in the areas of health law and policy, and international human rights law.

Stalking has increasingly drawn the attention of mental health professionals, legal professionals and the public. This book provides up-to-date information on a variety of areas within stalking research, including practical approaches to stalking risk assessment and management, along with unique information related to celebrity stalking, cyberstalking, and forensic assessment.

Many advocates of euthanasia consider the criminal law to be an inappropriate medium to adjudicate the profound ethical and humanitarian dilemmas associated with end of life decisions. Euthanasia, Death with Dignity and the Law examines the legal response to euthanasia and end of life decisions and considers whether legal reform is an appropriate response to calls for euthanasia to be more readily available as a mechanism for providing death with dignity. Through an analysis of consent to treatment, living wills and autonomous medical decision making, euthanasia is carefully located within its legal, medical, and social contexts. This book focuses on the impact of euthanasia on the dignity of both the recipient and the practitioner while emphasizing the legal, professional, and ethical implications of euthanasia and its significance for the exercise of clinical discretion. It will provide a valuable addition to the euthanasia debate.

In recent years a lot of emphasis has been placed on obtaining consent for surgical and medical procedures to avoid litigation. This has become an integral part of clinical risk management and clinical governance. Problems relating to consent are the reason for a great proportion of medico-legal claims. Adequate, informed consent and better record keeping will avoid a lot of complaints and litigation. This book aims to help to understand the types of consent , how to obtain consent, and its medico-legal implications when things go wrong. It is designed to help in obtaining consent for common procedures undertaken in obstetrics and gynaecology. It is intended not only for doctors, but also for midwives, nursing staff, medical students and allied health professionals. And it is also particularly relevant for overseas doctors who are new and generally less familiar with the risk management, clinical governance and litigation system in the UK. Another use of this book is to provide an invaluable on the spot reference for various operations and their complications, ways and means of minimising risk, and dealing with difficult situations. The speciality of obstetrics and gynaecology is sued more frequently than any other. This book should help all those who are involved in the ob/gyn department to minimise the risk and danger of incurring such action.

Incorporating in-depth interviews, statistical data, and prior studies, Fielding illustrates how modern medicine is a victim of its own success. The historical record since the early 19th century shows that the rate of malpractice claims has increased as medicine developed new and more complex procedures. Fielding integrates macro- and micro-levels of analysis to explain how scientific medicine is inherently prone to adverse outcomes no matter how competent medical provides are and how patients often feel their personal experiences and views are marginalized during the course of their medical care. This combination makes it more likely that patients will sue when something goes wrong.

The so-called medical practice crisis is mostly the result of a system of health care that has promoted professional dominance and high-tech care. This system both shapes and is shaped by the daily clinical context in which patients, physicians, and other providers interact. The key policy implication would be to place greater emphasis on primary care and prevention rather than curative or high-tech interventions. For example, aggressive programs to ensure primary care for all, public health, occupational health, and accident reduction would go a long way to improve both the health of the population and reduce the rate of medical malpractice claims.

The healthcare delivery system in the United States is inundated with medical malpractice and liability issues, and there is no consensus about causes or solutions. Both physicians and an alliance of lawyers and consumer groups agree that there is a crisis, but physicians claim that the current medical malpractice system inheres in too many lawsuits while the lawyers argue that the current level of litigation is insufficient. Multivariate statistical methods are used in this much needed effort to investigate the effects of medical malpractice on various aspects of health care.

After introducing the various tort reforms that have been proposed and implemented by some states, the author analyzes the impact of these reforms on medical malpractice payment rates, claim payments, malpractice insurance, and in dental malpractice. The impact of malpractice liability on costs, licensure, disciplinary action, the supply of physicians, and the practice of defensive medicine are also covered. This is an essential guide for students in law, medicine, and health administration, as well as anyone who wants to research these issues for public policy.

As society struggles to cope with the many repercussions of assisted life and death, the evening news is filled with stories of legal battles over frozen embryos and the possible prosecution of doctors for their patients' suicide. Using an "institutional" approach as an alternative to the prevailing "rights" based analysis of problems in law and medicine, this study explains why society should resist the tendency to look to science and law for a resolution of intimate matters, such as how our children are born and how we die. Palmer's institutional approach demonstrates that legislative analysis is often more important than judicial analysis when it comes to issues raised by new reproductive technologies and physician-assisted suicide. A reliance on individual rights alone for answers to the complex ethical questions that result from society's faith in scientific progress and science's close alliance with medicine will be insufficient and ill-advised. Palmer predicts that the key role of the family as a societal institution will mean that questions of assisted reproduction will be resolved more in response to market forces than through legal intervention. However, he does support a strong role for legislatures in decisions involving the physicians' role in our deaths. These findings are based on the differing views of the Supreme Court justices in these matters: a tendency to protect family formation from state interference (as in abortion decisions), but support of a legislative obligation to control medicine (assisted suicide). According to Palmer, recent Supreme Court decisions on physician assisted suicide usher in a new era in how legal institutions will resolve biomedical dilemmas.

Informed consent - as an ethical ideal and legal doctrine - has been the source of much concern to clinicians. Drawing on a diverse set of backgrounds and two decades of research in clinical settings, the authors - a lawyer, a physician, a social scientist, and a philosopher - help clinicians understand and cope with their legal obligations and show how the proper handling of informed consent can improve , rather than impede, patient care. Following a concise review of the ethical and legal foundations of informed consent, they provide detailed, practical suggestions for incorporating informed consent into clinical practice. This completely revised and updated edition discusses how to handle informed consent in all phases of the updated edition discusses how to handle informed consent in all phases of the doctor-patient relationship, use of consent forms, patients' refusals of treatment, and consent to research. It comments on recent laws and national policy, and addresses cutting edge issues such as fulfilling physician obligations under managed care. This clear and succinct book contains a weath of information that will not only help clinicians meet the legal requirements of informed consent and understand its ethical underpinnings, but also enhance their ability to deal with their patients more effectively. It will be of value to all those working in areas where issues of informed consent are likely to arise, including medicine, biomedical research, mental health care, nursing, dentistry, biomedical ethics, and law.

Students and professional nurses at any level of clinical practice will find this book to be a vital resource on the basic legal concepts and principles of malpractice, liability, and risk management, and their implications for the profession. The book also provides detailed strategies for dealing with these issues. The content is also highly relevant to practitioners in all other health care and legal disciplines that collaborate in the delivery of health care. Issues discussed include the expanding and evolving roles for professional nurses and the concomitant legal accountability and risk for liability, the increasing incidence of nurses named as defendants in malpractice lawsuits, anticipated changes in our health care delivery system, and breakthroughs in science and technology that will present new legal questions. The book also includes material on other important facets of today's nursing practice, including the growing phenomenon of tele-nursing, the essentials of malpractice insurance, and the legal significance of documentation and patients' medical records. It helps the reader identify the nurse at risk for a malpractice suit and the characteristics of the patient likely to sue. The appendices provide information on state laws concerned with access to medical records, a list of useful websites, a list of state boards of nursing, and a glossary of important terms.

While other books deal with the contemporary issue of the right to die, no attempt has been made to demonstrate substantially the historic nature of this question beyond the borders of the United States. Whiting demonstrates that the right to die controversy stretches back more than two thousand years, and he explains how current attitudes and practices in the U.S. have been influenced by the legal and cultural development of the ancient western world. This perspective allows the reader to understand not only the origins of the controversy, but also the different perspectives that each age has contributed to the ongoing debate.

Whiting discusses the development of legal rights within both western culture and the United States, then applies these developments to the question of the right to die. In an environment of public debate that features such emotional events as the exploits of Jack Kevorkian, the publication of how to suicide manuals, and the counterattacks of Right to Life groups, the United States is left with very few options.

Established in 1969, Cyril Wecht's Legal Medicine series has, in the words of a review of the 1982 volume, helped validate and develop the field which it reports. Legal Medicine's format assembles articles by experts dealing with a range of topics in the field of legal medicine and forensic science. The contributors provide balanced coverage of timely and practical issues.

A provocative presentation of medicolegal controversies within the American court system from the late 19th through the late 20th century. Medicine on Trial: A Handbook with Cases, Laws, and Documents chronicles the changing role of medicine in the American courtroom during the last 150 years. Integrating legal, historical, and medical perspectives, this comprehensive compilation tackles such public controversies as the "right to die" in the case of Karen Ann Quinlan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide laws, reproductive rights cases such as "Baby M," and issues surrounding mental illness. The book gives special attention to medical personnel as expert witnesses in the courtroom, a challenge which calls into question deeply rooted notions of professionalism and ethics. A series of criminal and bioethics cases highlights the wide range of debates, while a lively discussion presents issues that may become even more controversial in the future, such as DNA testing and artificial reproductive technology. Includes entries on key people such as Thomas Noguchi, laws including the Frye Rule, and key concepts such as informed consent Provides a chronology of the most important events in the history of medicine in the courtroom, including the Baby M and duty-to-disclose cases

Introduces key concepts and debates in health humanities and the health professions. Keywords for Health Humanities provides a rich, interdisciplinary vocabulary for the burgeoning field of health humanities and, more broadly, for the study of medicine and health. Sixty-five entries by leading international scholars examine current practices, ideas, histories, and debates around health and illness, revealing the social, cultural, and political factors that structure health conditions and shape health outcomes. Presenting possibilities for health justice and social change, this volume exposes readers—from curious beginners to cultural analysts, from medical students to health care practitioners of all fields—to lively debates about the complexities of health and illness and their ethical and political implications. A study of the vocabulary that comprises and shapes a broad understanding of health and the practices of healthcare, Keywords for Health Humanities guides readers toward ways to communicate accurately and effectively while engaging in creative analytical thinking about health and healthcare in an increasingly complex world—one in which seemingly straightforward beliefs and decisions about individual and communal health represent increasingly contested terrain.

Located between three powerful phenomena, public health, the law and social stigma, methadone maintenance treatment attracts loyal advocates, vociferous critics and innumerable engaged onlookers. This book aims to examine the controversial approach to addiction, providing in the process a unique approach to literature on illicit drugs

Public policy surrounding the hotly debated issue of physician-assisted suicide is examined in detail. You ll find an analysis of the current legal standing and practice of physician-assisted suicide in several countries. Authors discuss the ethical principles underlying its legal and professional regulation. Personal narratives provide important first-hand accounts from professionals who have been involved in end-of-life issues for many years.

Daniel Callahan---whose cofounding of The Hastings Center in 1969 was one of the most important milestones in the history of bioethics--has written on an uncommonly wide range of issues over a long career. They have moved back and forth between clinical care of individual patients and the ethical problems of health care research and delivery. Through his many writings, four core problems have recurred in all of his work, and influence each of the others. What is health and how has its understanding been shaped by medical progress and the culture of medicine and society? What is progress, a deep value in modern health care and how should we judge it? What kinds of technological innovations that come out of the drive for progress are really good for us-and what do we do when there is a clash between individual good and social good in the use of expensive technologies, a problem now evident in the unsustainable high costs of health care? How should our understanding of the place of an inevitable death in all our lives, and its place in medicine, help us to better think of the goals of medicine and the goals of our life in seeking a good death? Those four questions have been with bioethics from its beginning and will remain with it for the indefinite future. They are the roots of bioethics.

Introduces key concepts and debates in health humanities and the health professions. Keywords for Health Humanities provides a rich, interdisciplinary vocabulary for the burgeoning field of health humanities and, more broadly, for the study of medicine and health. Sixty-five entries by leading international scholars examine current practices, ideas, histories, and debates around health and illness, revealing the social, cultural, and political factors that structure health conditions and shape health outcomes. Presenting possibilities for health justice and social change, this volume exposes readers—from curious beginners to cultural analysts, from medical students to health care practitioners of all fields—to lively debates about the complexities of health and illness and their ethical and political implications. A study of the vocabulary that comprises and shapes a broad understanding of health and the practices of healthcare, Keywords for Health Humanities guides readers toward ways to communicate accurately and effectively while engaging in creative analytical thinking about health and healthcare in an increasingly complex world—one in which seemingly straightforward beliefs and decisions about individual and communal health represent increasingly contested terrain.

aCahn explores the relationships that underpin artificial reproductive technology: parenting, donating, and becoming (those who are the children brought to life through this process). . . . Much about assisted reproduction are the relationships that are fostered and challenged by the use of the technology, whether donor to potential parent, potential parent to state, surrogate to intended mother, or embryo to clinic, and after it is all adone, a child to parent.a
--Michele Goodwin, author of "Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts"

The birth of the first test tube baby in 1978 focused attention on the sweeping advances in assisted reproductive technology (ART), which is now a multi-billion-dollar business in the United States. Sperm and eggs are bought and sold in a market that has few barriersto its skyrocketing growth. While ART has been an invaluable gift to thousands of people, creating new families, the use of someone elseas genetic material raises complex legal and public policy issues that touch on technological anxiety, eugenics, reproductive autonomy, identity, and family structure. How should the use of gametic material be regulated? Should recipients be able to choose the abesta sperm and eggs? Should a child ever be able to discover the identity of her gamete donor? Who can claim parental rights?

Naomi R. Cahn explores these issues and many more in Test Tube Families, noting that although such questions are fundamental to the new reproductive technologies, there are few definitive answers provided by the law, ethics, or cultural norms. The regulatory void outside of minimal requirements for gametic testing and limited protection against deceptivemarketing techniques used by fertility clinics creates thorny problems for all involved in the egg and sperm business.

As a new generation of adonor kidsa comes of age, Test Tube Families calls for better regulation of ART. It exhorts legal and policy-making communities to cease applying piecemeal laws and instead create laws that sustain the fertility industry, yet protect the interests of donors, recipients, and the children that result from successful transfers.

Incorporating real-life stories to illustrate her arguments, Cahn provides specific suggestions for legal reforms. The book sets out a series of controversial proposals, including an end to donor anonymity and a plea for states to clarify parentage decisions. She also calls for the federal government to regulate ART processes to ensure that donors are adequately protected against exploitation, that recipients receive the gametes they have been promised, and that the market functions ethically as well as efficiently.

A thorough exploration of an individual's right to bodily autonomy versus the state's power to regulate and control the bodies of its citizens. The Human Body on Trial asks the basic question: Who's in charge of your body-you or the authorities? Four narrative chapters examine key constitutional questions addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court over the past century concerning the power of the state to regulate the human body, placing the issues in historical context and examining the contemporary legal and medical knowledge that informed each decision. The book focuses on individual cases, such as Jacobson v. Massachusetts (compulsory vaccination), Buck v. Bell (forced sterilization), and Roe v. Wade (abortion), and discusses such controversial issues as AIDS testing and physician-assisted suicide. A special reference section includes court decisions and other primary documents. Timeline of major events in the evolution of the legal right of individual autonomy from the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 to the 2002 ruling in State of Oregon and Peter Rasmussen, et al. v. John Ashcroft regarding implementing Oregon's Death with Dignity Act Excerpts from key legal documents from the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision to the lesser known Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) ruling by the Supreme Court overturning the mandated sterilization for three-time offenders convicted of certain felonies

Kapp's annotated list of 617 titles, in 13 sections, focuses on sources that discuss the `identifiable body of law concerned with personal and institutional relationships, implicated by the delivery of health care for the elderly.' This work is meant for health professionals, attorneys, researchers, educators, and advanced students. The succinct yet informative annotations cover references from January 1, 1980, to August 31, 1987. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Legal questions relating to health care for the elderly have grown increasingly numerous and complex. While these issues have been dealt with extensively by researchers and professional specialists, the literature has grown so vast in the past decade that it is difficult to keep abreast of legal developments. This bibliography is designed to assist practicing health, human services, and legal professionals as well as researchers, teachers, and students in identifying and evaluating information sources that will provide essential guidance on the legal implications of health care for the elderly. Organized in thirteen subject sections, the volume contains more than six-hundred annotated references dealing with institutional regulations and standards of care, disability determinations, decisionmaking for critically ill patients, involuntary commitment, advocacy services for the older health care consumer, and many other topics. Citations consist of books, book chapters, journal articles, and reports published from 1980 onwards. Entries are cross-referenced systematically, and author and subject indexes are provided. This important new reference will be an invaluable working tool for professionals and students who need to understand and deal with some of the most difficult issues in the field of modern health care.