Old Law, New Medicine: Medical Ethics and Human Rights

by Sheila McLean

Overview

Medical techniques can now predict the 'quality' of an unborn life through genetic testing, but does this entitle doctors to decide whether a birth should be allowed? Who should have the last word on such new issues as trans-species organ transplants? Do we really understand the implications of new techniques and technologies for our human rights?

Examining a wide range of topical subjects, Old Law, New Medicine argues that unless we tackle the ethical questions forced upon us by the new medicine, our human rights may increasingly be in jeopardy. Professor McLean discusses key contemporary subjects, including reproductive and abortion issues, the treatment of mentally disabled infants, and the implications of physician-assisted suicide. By categorizing such dilemmas as medical and protecting medical judgement, she argues, society as a whole and the law in particular abdicate ethical responsibilities by refusing to distinguish between human issues and medical ones and, thus, failing to provide for the rights of citizens whose interests may be compromised by the powerful alliance of two powerful institutions: medicine and law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780863584039
Publisher:	Pandora Press
Publication date:	04/28/1999
Pages:	210
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 5.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sheila McLean, the International Bar Association Professor of Law and Ethics in Medicine at Glasgow University, is the author of The Case For Physician Assisted Suicide, also published by Pandora Press.

Editorial Reviews

A guiding light in the moral maze.

Guardian