Regulating Decision Making In Multiple Pregnancy

This book examines the regulation and practice of medical decision-making where the context is that of a multiple pregnancy and where the question is whether or not to carry out a fetal reduction procedure. It concerns three main lines of inquiry: first, the nature of fetal reduction and the legal ground(s) for termination typically relied upon; secondly, the extent to which legal, ethical, and professional norms guide or constrain this particular kind of decision-making; and, thirdly, the adequacy of these norms. The book uses empirical sources to develop its analysis, contributing new insight and the kind of evidence necessary to shape regulation, clinical practice, and future research. The key findings show that fetal abnormality is often given as the justifying ground; that the legal, ethical, and professional norms offer little explicit guidance for fetal reduction: and on the general question of termination, ethical norms suffer from a high level of contestation, the key norms in the UK abortion legislation are unclear and disconnected from practice, and professional norms are only marginally more adequate. Given the indeterminacy of these norms, it is no surprise that the evidence indicates that doctors are only weakly guided by them in making their decisions. Various recommendations are advanced in this book, including the need for a situational emphasis on shared decision-making and patient-centred care.

These essays explore the nature and limits of individual autonomy in law, policy and the work of regulatory agencies. Authors ask searching questions about the nature and scope of the regulation of 'private' lives, from intimacies, personal relationships and domestic lives to reproduction. They question the extent to which the law does, or should, protect individual autonomy. Recent rapid advances in the development of new technologies - particularly those concerned with human genetics and assisted reproduction - have generated new questions (practical, social, legal and ethical) about how far the state should intervene in individual decision making. Is there an inevitable tension between individual liberty and the common good? How might a workable balance between the public and the private be struck? How, indeed, should we think about 'autonomy'? The essays explore the arguments used to create and maintain the boundaries of autonomy - for example, the protection of the vulnerable, public goods of various kinds, and the maintenance of tradition and respect for cultural practices. Contributors address how those boundaries should be drawn and interventions justified. How are contemporary ethical debates about autonomy constructed, and what principles do they embody? What happens when those principles become manifest in law?

Human beings have been producing more twins, triplets, and quadruplets than ever before, due to the expansion of medically assisted conception. This book analyzes the anticipatory regimes of making multiple babies. With archival documents, participant observation, in-depth interviews, and registry data, this book traces the global and local governance of the assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) used to tackle multiple pregnancy since the 1970s, highlighting the early promotion of single embryo transfer in Belgium and Japan and the making of the world’s most lenient guidelines in Taiwan.

Abstract: This book presents the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of the Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy within the National Research Council. The panel examined research and existing programs which address the areas of adolescent sexuality, pregnancy, and childbearing with the intent of making recommendations for policy making, program design, program evaluation, and research. The panel's report is presented in chapters addressing the following topics: trends in adolescent sexuality and fertility, society and changing roles of adolescents, determinants of sexual behavior, effects of adolescent childbearing, interventions, and priorities for data collection, research, policies, and programs. An accompanying volume contains the working papers on which the report was based. The working papers address three broad areas, which are: 1) influences on early sexual and fertility behavior, 2) consequences of early sexual and fertility behavior, and 3) programs and policies related to teen pregnancy and sexuality.

The draft Bill was published in May 2007 as Command paper Cm 7087 (ISBN 9780101708722). Vol. 1 of this report is also available (ISBN 9780104011348)

Current placental research in Japan, reflecting the adoption of recent biochemical, immunochemical and microbiological knowledge and techniques, and the resulting observation of enzyme activity and transportation of a variety of substances utilising isolated BBM, BBMV, BM and BMV. Also Vol. 10: Early PregnancyCovering: Trophoblast invasion . Angiogenesis and Blood Vessels . Endocrine and Paracine Regulation. With the European Placenta Group

Why is the law failing to protect pregnant workers and parents from detrimental treatment in the workplace? This theoretically informed book, which draws on the findings of a large scale, Nuffield Foundation funded, study of pregnancy-related workplace disputes, explores the legal regulation of pregnancy and parenting in the labour market. Using an epistemology that draws primarily on critical feminist debates, theories and critiques, the book adopts a necessarily female standpoint and seeks to answer why, despite positive policy ambitions and ample legislation, law is failing to protect pregnant workers and parents. Whilst sensitive to the limits of law’s ability to bring about social change, the book asks whether it is the direction of current policies that need attention, or the substance of the legislation that is flawed. Is it the application of the law in courts and tribunals that fails working families or the mechanics of the employment dispute resolution and tribunal system that needs adjusting? This book will interest academics, students and practitioners of law and social policy interested in employment law and discrimination.