Law And The Human Body

An account of many aspects of medical practice and the law. Dealing with such controversial areas as genetic engineering, fetal rights, transplantation, euthanasia, artificial reproduction, and medical examination, Meyers gives a breakdown of current debates and legal decisions in England, Scotland and the US. First published in 1970. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Do you own your body? Advances in science and the development of genetic databases have added an aura of modern controversy to this long-standing and, as yet, unresolved problem. In particular, English law governing separated human tissue (including organs, DNA and cell-lines) is unsatisfactory. Despite the enactment of the Human Tissue Act 2004 UK, it remains uncertain what property rights living persons can claim over tissue separated from their bodies. The development of clear legal principles is necessary to protect the rights of individuals while also enabling the efficient use of such ma.

How should the law deal with the challenges of advancing biotechnology? This book is a philosophical and legal re-analysis.

When part of a person's body is separated from them, or when a person dies, it is unclear what legal status the item of bodily material is able to obtain. A 'no property rule' which states that there is no property in the human body was first recorded in an English judgment in 1882. Claims based on property rights in the human body and its parts have failed on the basis that the human body is not the subject of property. Despite a recent series of exceptions to the 'no property rule', the law still has no clear answer as to the legal status of the body or its material. In this book, Wall examines the appropriate legal status of bodily material, and in doing so, develops a way for the law to address disputes over the use and storage of bodily material that, contrary to the current trend, resists the application of property law. Wall assesses when a person ought to be able to possess, control, use, or profit from, his or her own bodily material or the bodily material of another person. Bodily material may be valuable because it retains a functional unity with the body or is a material resource that is in short supply. With this in mind, Wall measures the extent to which property law can represent the rights and duties that protects the entitlement that a person may exercise in bodily material, and identifies the limits to the appropriate application of property law. An alternative to property law is developed with reference to the right of bodily integrity and the right to privacy.

Human Rights and the Body is a response to the crisis in human rights, to the very real concern that without a secure foundation for the concept of human rights, their very existence is threatened. While there has been consideration of the discourses of human rights and the way in which the body is written upon, research in linguistics has not yet been fully brought to bear on either human rights or the body. Drawing on legal concepts and aspects of the law of human rights, Mooney aims to provide a universally defensible set of human rights and a foundation, or rather a frame, for them. She argues that the proper frames for human rights are firstly the human body, seen as an index reliant on the natural world, secondly the globe and finally, language. These three frames generate rights to food, water, sleep and shelter, environmental protection and a right against dehumanization. This book is essential reading for researchers and graduate students in the fields of human rights and semiotics of law.

In this admirably objective and lucid exposition, the author examines from a medico-legal standpoint the comparative position in various countries, particularly in the UK and the USA, of currently controversial medical procedures: voluntary sterilisation, compulsory sterilisation and castration, trans-sexualism, experimentation, transplantation, and euthanasia - few of which, if any, enjoy a settled or clearly defined place in the eyes of the law. He considers the problems from two perspectives: first, that of the individual in society and how far he himself may determine the extent of physical intrusion on his body; secondly, that of the state or society and how far it may impose or limit medical intrusion on the human body. Thus, Mr. Meyers provides a valuable account, not only of current medical attitudes, but also of relevant case and statute law as it stands at present.It is inherent in the nature of this book that it should arouse controversy and argument. There are many important questions to be debated: Has the state the right to enforce its conception of morality without showing that the behaviour it proscribes has a harmful effect on other members of society? To what extent does consent by the individual concerned insulate a surgeon from criminal liability? In connection with compulsory sterilisation, who is to judge those unfit to procreate? What is a proper definition of medical experimentation? What constitutes death? If a man has a right to live has he not an equal right to die?These are a few of the issues raised. The author has not hesitated to express his own opinions but has clearly relegated them to the summary at the end of each chapter, thereby leaving the objectivity of his main text unimpaired.David W. Meyers is a practicing lawyer in California, with American and British legal qualifications at the firm of Dickenson, Peatman & Fogarty. He has taught at the University of Edinburgh Law School and the University of Tasmania Law School as well as