Table Of ContentThe Legitimacy of Medical Treatment
W henever the legitimacy of a new or ethically contentious medical intervention is
considered, a range of influences will determine whether the treatment becomes
accepted as lawful medical treatment. The development and introduction of abor-
tion, organ donation, gender reassignment, and non-therapeutic cosmetic surgery
have, for example, all raised ethical, legal, and clinical issues. This book examines
the various factors that legitimatise a medical procedure.
B ringing together a range of internationally and nationally recognised aca-
demics from law, philosophy, medicine, health, economics, and sociology, the book
explores the notion of a treatment, practice, or procedure being proper medi-
cal treatment, and considers the range of diverse factors which might influence
the acceptance of a particular procedure as appropriate in the medical context.
Contributors address such issues as clinical judgement and professional autonomy,
the role of public interest, and the influence of resource allocation in decision-
making. In doing so, the book explores how the law, the medical profession, and the
public interact in determining whether a new or ethically contentious procedure
should be regarded as legitimate.
This book will be of interest and use to researchers and students of bioethics,
medical law, criminal law, and the sociology of medicine.
Sara Fovargue is Reader in Law, at Lancaster University, and Co-Director of the
Lancaster Centre for Bioethics and Medical Law.
Alexandra Mullock is a Lecturer in Medical Law at the University of Man-
chester, and a member of the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy at the University.
Biomedical Law and Ethics Library
Series Editor: Sheila A. M. McLean
Scientific and clinical advances, social and political developments and the impact
of healthcare on our lives raise profound ethical and legal questions. Medical law
and ethics have become central to our understanding of these problems, and are
important tools for the analysis and resolution of problems – real or imagined.
I n this series, scholars at the forefront of biomedical law and ethics contribute
to the debates in this area, with accessible, thought-provoking, and sometimes
controversial, ideas. Each book in the series develops an independent hypothesis
and argues cogently for a particular position. One of the major contributions of
this series is the extent to which both law and ethics are utilised in the content of
the books, and the shape of the series itself.
T he books in this series are analytical, with a key target audience of lawyers,
doctors, nurses, and the intelligent lay public.
Available titles:
Human Fertilisation and Embryology
Reproducing regulation
Kirsty Horsey & Hazel Biggs
Intention and Causation in Medical Non-killing
The impact of criminal law concepts on euthanasia and assisted suicide
Glenys Williams
Impairment and Disability
Law and Ethics at the Beginning and End of Life
Sheila McLean & Laura Williamson
Bioethics and the Humanities
Attitudes and Perceptions
Robin Downie & Jane Macnaughton
Defending the Genetic Supermarket
The law and ethics of selection the next generation
Colin Gavagham
The Harm Paradox
Tort law and the unwanted child in an era of choice
Nicolette Priaulx
Assisted Dying
Reflections on the Need for Law Reform
Sheila McLean
Medicine, Malpractice and Misapprehensions
V. H. Harpwood
Euthanasia, Ethics and the Law
From the conflict to compromise
Richard Huxtable
The Best Interests of the Child in Healthcare
Sarah Elliston
Values in Medicine
What are we really doing to patients?
Donald Evans
Autonomy, Consent and the Law
Sheila A.M. McLean
Healthcare Research Ethics and Law
Regulation, review and responsibility
Hazel Biggs
The Body in Bioethics
Alastair V. Campbell
Genomic Negligence
An interest in autonomy as the basis for novel negligence claims
generated by genetic technology
Victoria Chico
Health Professionals and Trust
The cure for healthcare law and policy
Mark Henaghan
Medical Ethics in China
A transcultural interpretation
Jing-Bao Nie
Law, Ethics and Compromise at the Limits of Life
To treat or not to treat?
Richard Huxtable
Regulating Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis
A comparative and theoretical analysis
Sheila A.M. McLean & Sarah Elliston
Bioethics
Methods, theories, domains
Marcus Düwell
Human Population Genetic Research in Developing Countries
The Issue of Group Protection
Yue Wang
Coercive Care
Rights, law and policy
Bernadette McSherry & Ian Freckelton
Saviour Siblings
A relational approach to the welfare of the child in selective reproduction
Michelle Taylor-Sands
Human Population Genetic Research in Developing Countries
The issue of group protection
Yue Wang
Stem Cell Research and the Collaborative Regulation
of Innovation
Sarah Devaney
The Voices and Rooms of European Bioethics
Richard Huxtable and Ruud Ter Meulen
The Legitimacy of Medical Treatment
What role for the medical exception?
Sara Fovargue and Alexandra Mullock
Forthcoming titles include:
Autonomy and Pregnancy
A comparative analysis of compelled obstetric intervention
Samantha Halliday
The Jurisprudence of Pregnancy
Concepts of conflict, persons and property
Mary Neal
Regulating Risk
Values in health research governance
Shawn Harmon
The Umbilical Cord Blood Controversies in Medical Law
Karen Devine
Revisiting Landmark Cases in Medical Law
Shaun D. Pattinson
Revisiting the Regulation of Human Fertilisation and
Embryology
Kirsty Horsey
The Ethical and Legal Consequences of Posthumous
Reproduction
Lewis Browne
Pioneering Healthcare Law
Essays in honour of Margaret Brazier
Catherine Stanton, Sarah Devaney, Anne-Marree Farrell and Alexandra Mullock
End of Life Decision Making for Critically Impaired Infants
Resource allocation and difficult decisions
Neera Bhatia
Birth, Harm and the Role of Distributive Justice
Burdens, blessings, need and desert
Alasdair Maclean
About the series editor
Professor Sheila McLean is International Bar Association Professor of Law and
Ethics in Medicine and Director of the Institute of Law and Ethics in Medicine
at the University of Glasgow.
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The Legitimacy of Medical
Treatment
What role for the medical exception?
Edited by Sara Fovargue
and Alexandra Mullock
First published 2016
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2016 editorial matter and selection, Sara Forvargue and Alexandra
Mullock; individual chapters, the contributors
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ISBN: 978-1-138-81963-4 (hbk)
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