1st Edition

Informed Choice of Medical Services: Is the Law Just? Is the Law Just?

By Marj Milburn Copyright 2001
    140 Pages
    by Routledge

    This title was first published in 2001. This work is a uniquely multi-disciplinary contribution to the existing bioethical literature on the topic of informed choice of medical services. It is also the first comprehensive bioethical text to confront the central issue of power in the clinical encounter and to argue for statutory protection of the right to informed choice. While the majority of bioethicists argue for a conciliatory, rather than adversarial, approach to the chronic problem of uninformed consent, the author of this work argues that the external regulation of medicine is essential if the right to informed choice is to be protected. This argument is based upon an extensive review of the bioethical, legal, political, medical, sociological and philosophical literature, as well as a wide range of empirical and anecdotal evidence, evolving from a detailed exploration of power and the limits of rationality in the clinical encounter.

    Contents: Informed choice of medical services: still a problem?; Informed choice: legal doctrine or ethical concept?; Medicine: beneficence or enlightened self-interest?; The clinical encounter: protecting power and privilege?; Human rights: a problem for political rationalism?; Beyond legalism: a feminist jurisprudence as a guide to law reform?; Changing the balance of power; Bibliography; Index.
    'Worth mentioning are the appreciable bibliographic support and the deep knowledge of important case studies, not only North-American and British but also Canadian and Australian.' Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy