Medical Law-Making and the Role of the Scientific Expert
The Case of ART in Comparative Perspective
Biomedical Law and Ethics Library Series

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 expertisein 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.

Introduction: Reasons for a comparative study on ART regulation: A trend towards a common approach to the regulation of science? 1. Comparative method and the biomedical framework: ART regulation 2. New routes for classifying ART regulation: From legislative content to legislative method. 3. The implementation of indicators: The growth of transversal regulatory models 4. The implementation of indicators: substantive law 5. Convergence by procedures: the integration by specialisation of different regulatory tools