The State and the Body: Legal Regulation of Bodily Autonomy

(Hardback)

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Description

This book investigates the limits of the legitimate role of the state in regulating the human body. It questions whether there is a public interest in issues of bodily autonomy, with particular focus on reproductive choices, end of life choices, sexual autonomy, body modifications and selling the body. The main question addressed in this book is whether such autonomous choices about the human body are, and should be, subject to state regulation. Potential justifications for the states intervention into these issues through mechanisms such as the criminal law and regulatory schemes are evaluated. These include preventing harm to others and/or to the individual involved, as well as more abstract concepts such as public morality, the sanctity of human life, and the protection of human dignity. The State and the Body argues that the state should be particularly wary about encroaching upon exercises of autonomy by embodied selves and concludes that only interventions based upon Mills harm principle or, in tightly confined circumstances, the dignity of the human species as a whole should suffice to justify public intervention into private choices about the body.

Reviews

This is indeed a thought-provoking book that continues an important debate about the dichotomy of privacy and paternalism, autonomy and regulation, harm and protection and the body and the mind. This book is likely to appeal to legal scholars, philosophers and bioethicists alike. It is well written and easy to read with a logical flow to the arguments. -- Rita DAlton-Harrison, Royal Holloway, University of London * European Journal of Health Law *
[T]his book provides thought-provoking discussions on state intervention in bodily choices ... Her writing style is straightforward and easy to read, and she explains the legal background of each category of bodily choices that she discusses well. This book contains academic discussion from a range of sources, which makes it a good foundation for further research and discussion about state intervention into private choices about the body. -- Lindsey Claire Hogg, Lancaster University * Medical Law Review *

Author Bio

Elizabeth Wicks is a Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Leicester.