Abstract
Margaret Brazier, Law and Healing: A History of a Stormy Marriage, Manchester University Press, 2023, hardback, 253 pp, £85, ISBN 9781526129185.
Extract
Medical law is a maturing discipline. Although a relative newcomer to law school curricula, medical law is now widely offered, belying the efforts early adopters had to go to in order to defend its legitimacy as a field of serious legal scholarship.1 With a tendency to focus on the challenges of emerging technologies, it has been easy to categorise medical law as a new area of academic inquiry, and for research to concentrate on the present and future rather than looking to the lessons of history. This narrow focus, however, misses the potential insights that come from a longer-term view.
As Margaret Brazier persuasively argues in this engaging new addition to Manchester University Press’s Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, Law and Medical Humanities series, ‘“Medical law” is not new: it just looked different’.2 Tracing the interactions and evolving relationship between law and healing from the 13th to the 19th century, she identifies numerous issues that resonate with present-day medical law concerns. This book builds upon, and more fully articulates, Brazier’s previously expressed ideas in relation to the value of studying the history of medical law,3 which she argues is valuable both for its own sake and to inform the present. Her view is not uncritical, however: as she notes in the postscript, history can easily be distorted to fit the desired ends. She refers to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization as an example of such practice, in which the Supreme Court drew upon the (questionable) views of a 13th-century monk and a 17th-century jurist, among others, to provide authority for the view that abortion was a common law crime.4 Brazier’s unease with the misuse of medico-legal history doesn’t temper her enthusiasm for the subject. Rather, she agrees with Wofford that ‘History does not provide answers to the problems today: it merely helps to frame the question.’5
Extract
Medical law is a maturing discipline. Although a relative newcomer to law school curricula, medical law is now widely offered, belying the efforts early adopters had to go to in order to defend its legitimacy as a field of serious legal scholarship.1 With a tendency to focus on the challenges of emerging technologies, it has been easy to categorise medical law as a new area of academic inquiry, and for research to concentrate on the present and future rather than looking to the lessons of history. This narrow focus, however, misses the potential insights that come from a longer-term view.
As Margaret Brazier persuasively argues in this engaging new addition to Manchester University Press’s Contemporary Issues in Bioethics, Law and Medical Humanities series, ‘“Medical law” is not new: it just looked different’.2 Tracing the interactions and evolving relationship between law and healing from the 13th to the 19th century, she identifies numerous issues that resonate with present-day medical law concerns. This book builds upon, and more fully articulates, Brazier’s previously expressed ideas in relation to the value of studying the history of medical law,3 which she argues is valuable both for its own sake and to inform the present. Her view is not uncritical, however: as she notes in the postscript, history can easily be distorted to fit the desired ends. She refers to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization as an example of such practice, in which the Supreme Court drew upon the (questionable) views of a 13th-century monk and a 17th-century jurist, among others, to provide authority for the view that abortion was a common law crime.4 Brazier’s unease with the misuse of medico-legal history doesn’t temper her enthusiasm for the subject. Rather, she agrees with Wofford that ‘History does not provide answers to the problems today: it merely helps to frame the question.’5
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 281-286 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Volume | 32 |
| No. | 2 |
| Specialist publication | Medical Law Review |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 May 2024 |
| Externally published | Yes |