Framing the Clinical Body

The philosophical and juridical status of human (and non-human) bodies, has fuelled extensive academic debate. Recent biotechnological developments have prompted renewed interest in questions regarding the ownership, possession and control of bodies, bodily parts and products. This work aims to explore the implications of such developments for legal understandings of property and bodies. At present, English law provides no coherent framework for the legal regulation of bodily products. Instead, what might be regarded as a spectrum of regulation exists from the statutory regulation of reproductive materials, through common law principles of consent to treatment, to non-statutory guidance applicable in relation to the use of foetal tissue. An analysis of the existing legal position is provided. The book considers recent controversies regarding the use of human tissue and bodily products, as exemplified by the Bristol and Alder Hay inquiries and the Diane Blood case, and considers whether the paradigm of property is an appropriate one to address this issue.