Ethical Issues in Maternal-Fetal Medicine

This volume brings together an unusually broad range of experts from reproductive medicine, medical ethics, and law to address the important ethical problems in maternal-fetal medicine which impact directly on clinical practice. The book is divided into parts by the stages of pregnancy, within which the authors cover four main areas: the balance of power in the doctor-patient relationship and the justifiable limits of paternalism and autonomy; the impact of new technologies and new diseases; disability and enhancement; and difference—to what extent should the clinician respect the tenets of other faiths in a multicultural society.

This book addresses the ethical problems in maternal-fetal medicine which impact directly on clinical practice.

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Focusing on the implications of ethics for clinical practice, 12 chapters by philosophers, social scientists, legal scholars, and doctors address the power inherent in the doctor-patient relationship, the impact of new technologies and new diseases, disability and enhancement, and diversity. Particular attention is given to the justifiable limits of paternalism and autonomy, and to the issues that arise at various stages of pregnancy and neonatal care. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Donna Dickenson (b. 1946) was previously Leverhulme Reader in Medical Ethics and Law at Imperial College London; she has also held positions at the Open University (UK) and Yale University. She has written, co-written or edited seven books in medical ethics, including The Cambridge Workbook in Medical Ethics (2001, with Dr Michael Parker), and has been principal investigator on several European Commission, Wellcome Trust and Department of Health projects, primarily concerned with widening ethics education for medical practitioners. Her journal of publications, about forty in all, include articles in the British Medical Journal, Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics, and other leading refereed journals. She was Secretary of the fifth International Association of Bioethics conference in London and also heavily involved in organising the simultaneous Feminist Approaches to Bioethics conference. Her 1997 book, Property, Women and Politics, developed a feminist reconstruction of philosophical concepts concerning property and applied them to property in the body, particularly such issues in reproductive ethics as abortion, ownership of fetal and ovarian tissue, and contract motherhood.