Medical Law-Making and the Role of the Scientific Expert

As medical applications and scientific knowledge rapidly evolves, it is a challenge for statutory law to keep up and adapt. Law-making bodies are faced with the dilemma of whether to regulate new medical procedures. This book explores nature and function of Parliamentary regulation in the biomedical field, particularly focusing on the role of scientific expertise in both law-making and law-enforcing processes.

Taking assisted reproductive technologies (ART) as a key case, and drawing on the legal systems of the UK, France, Italy and Spain, the book adopts a comparative method to understand the nature of medical regulation in both civil and common law systems. Simon Penasa argues that a shift of paradigm is needed to understanding how statutory law may adequately guarantee an adaptable regulation in a field characterised by fluidity and swift change.

As a book that compares the regulation of assisted reproduction, and the more generally process of medical law-making, this book will be a value resource to students and researchers of bioethics, medical/health law, and medicine.