Family Rights

Medicine has made strides in the area of human reproduction and this book asks what the implications of this are for conventional notions of "the family" and how parental rights are affected. It examines the growing legal and ethical issues of family rights in the making of treatment decisions and in using the latest human reproduction techniques. Medico-legal experts from Britain and North America deal with all aspects of family law, including surrogacy and its implications for the family, new reproductive techniques (IVF, "womb-leasing") and life-and-death decisions concerning children and old people. There are chapters on "foetal abuse" and the control of the pregnant woman, sterilization and other forms of contraception, the rights of children in medical treatment decisions and the psychological and family consequences of genetically transmissable diseases.