Dr Cressida Auckland

This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law and LLB in Laws. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

Medical law is a rapidly developing and increasingly important subject, as new technologies and treatments offer new possibilities for creating, extending, and enhancing life. In recent years, problems of scarce resources and health inequalities have become central political issues in the UK, while the criminalisation of both assisted dying and abortion have garnered significant attention, both in public discourse and at a legislative level. Alongside this, the development of new technologies, such as genome editing, egg freezing and face transplants, are invariably accompanied by demands for their regulation. In this course we examine the legal framework within which health services are provided, and we explore some of the difficult legal and ethical dilemmas that arise when determining the limits of medical innovation.

Subjects include resource allocation; public health; malpractice litigation; consent; mental capacity; medical decision-making for children; mental health law; confidentiality; clinical research; the regulation of medicines; organ transplantation; embryo and stem cell research; abortion; assisted conception; preimplantation genetic diagnosis; surrogacy and end-of-life decision-making.

This course is delivered through a combination of weekly one-hour classes and weekly 1.5-2 hour lectures across Autumn Term and Winter Term. This course includes a reading week in Weeks 6 of Autumn Term and Winter Term.

At least one formative (unassessed) essay per term.

Jackson, Medical Law: Text, Cases and Materials, 6th edition (Oxford UP, 2022).

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours and 30 minutes) in the spring exam period.