Book Review: Bioethics, Medicine and the Criminal Law—The Criminal Law and Bioethical Conflict: Walking the Tightrope

• DOI: 10.1177/1057567714547130
• Date: 01 June 2018
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Author: Donald H. Wallace
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Review

Book Review

Alghrani, A., Bennett, R., & Ost, S. (Eds.). (2012).

Bioethics, medicine and the criminal law—The criminal law and bioethical conflict: Walking the tightrope. New York,

NY: Cambridge University Press. 290 pp. US$110.00, ISBN 978-1-107-02512-7.

Reviewed by: Donald H. Wallace, University of Central Missouri, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567714547130

The Criminal Law and Bioethical Conflict: Walking the Tightrope provides a collection of 17 essays

from an array of academic scholars and practitioners. The book considers the balance that exists

between the goals of medical research and practice with the varying perspectives on the moral

criteria that society imposes through the criminal law. The editors portray this book, where the

British legal system is the predominate focus, as an opportunity for bioethicists and criminal

lawyers to discuss across disciplines.

The four parts of the book frame the dominant issues as observed by the editors in the encounter

between bioethics and the criminal law. Medically assisted dying is examined in the first part. The

chapters present contrasting perspectives from a call by John Griffiths for decriminalization to an

argument by John Keown that views intervention of the criminal law as being entirely appropriate

and continue in a discussion by Richard Huxtable that offers a compromise of conceptualizing

mercy killing within a necessity defense. The final chapter in this section presents a generalizeable

framework for achieving principled compromise that could be used for any number of challenging

policy discussions that demand concessions in the moral positions held by conflicting parties.

Respect for individual autonomy represents a core ethical principle of bioethics. However, the

criminal law’s focus on the harm done to society rather than the victim per se presents a paterna-

listic approach that can prevent the preemption of an individual’s consent to acts that can lead to

bodily harm. Thus, Part II considers the involvement by the surgeon author, Robert C. Smith, with

patients presenting body integrity identity disorder (BIID), a desire to amputate an otherwise

healthy part of their bodies. This chapter rejects the application of the criminal law, finding B IID

to be through surgery a treatable disorder in the same way as gender identity disorder. In a second

chapter, David Gurnham considers that the seemingly contradictory approaches of the criminal

law in the United Kingdom have been guided by two different sets of gender discourses where

individual autonomy will be respected for the decisions to engage in sexual encounters, which

entail the infliction of grievous bodily injury, yet consent is insufficient where one party recklessly

transmits HIV to another. Examined in a final chapter by Suzanne Ost and Hazel Biggs in this sec-

tion is the applicability of the criminal law in sexual relationships, where there is an imbalance of

power between individuals such as in a doctor–patient relationship.

The four chapters in Part III examine the uneasy relationship between science and society over

scientific research and new technologies, where calls for stronger regulation include the use of

the criminal law. The use of criminal law to provide a means of developing public trust, as opposed

to being merely a regulatory mechanism, for the areas of human reproduction and human tissue is

examined by Amel Alghrani and Sarah Chan in the first chapter. In the following chapter, Sara

International CriminalJustice Review

2018, Vol. 28(2) 181-182

ª2014 Georgia State University

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