The book is intended to be an introductory guide for healthcare practitioners, legal practitioners, healthcare students and law students who are concerned with the delivery of healthcare services in South Africa. The book emphasises the ethical and legal aspects of healthcare in the country while making references to international human rights and ethical standards applicable to healthcare services. As the book is a guide, it does not deal exhaustively with the topics discussed. Instead it aims to give healthcare and legal practitioners some general guidelines. New edition update: - an updated ethics chapter that includes a robust section on African indigenous values in the context of health care. - a chapter on universal health care coverage and the NHI. - the legislation need to be reviewed and updated. - a section on alternate dispute resolution. - the section on research also requires updating. - the case studies also need to be made more recent to include current contextually relevant issues like the Life Esidimeni Tragedy. Table of contents: Part 1: Introduction to Bioethics, Human Rights and Health Law: Principles and Practice - Background Chapter 1 Ethical concepts, theories and principles and their application to healthcare Chapter 2. Codes of healthcare ethics Chapter 3. Health and human rights Chapter 4. Health law - the basics Part 2: Specific Topics Chapter 5. Professionalism and the healthcare practitioner-patient relationship Chapter 6. Consent Chapter 7. Confidentiality Chapter 8. Medical malpractice and professional negligence Chapter 9. Reproductive health Chapter 10. Issues in genetics Chapter 11. Use of human tissue Chapter 12. End of life issues Chapter 13. HIV and AIDS Chapter 14. Resource allocation Chapter 15. Business ethics - the healthcare context Chapter 16. Human health and the environment Chapter 17. The ethics of research

Bioethics was "born in the USA" and the values American bioethics embrace are based on American law, including liberty and justice. This book crosses the borders between bioethics and law, but moves beyond the domestic law/bioethics struggles for dominance by exploring attempts to articulate universal principles based on international human rights. The isolationism of bioethics in the US is not tenable in the wake of scientific triumphs like decoding the human genome, and civilizational tragedies like international terrorism. Annas argues that by crossing boundaries which have artificially separated bioethics and health law from the international human rights movement, American bioethics can be reborn as a global force for good, instead of serving mainly the purposes of U.S. academics. This thesis is explored in a variety of international contexts such as terrorism and genetic engineering, and in U.S. domestic disputes such as patient rights and market medicine. The citizens of the world have created two universal codes: science has sequenced the human genome and the United Nations has produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The challenge for American bioethics is to combine these two great codes in imaginative and constructive ways to make the world a better, and healthier, place to live.

George P. Smith, II is a leading figure in the world of medical law and ethics. During his long career he has addressed some of the most important issues in bioethics and has contributed much original thought to debates in the field. This book celebrates his contribution to scholarship in this area and brings together his key writings in bioethics. The chapters include previously published material which has been substantially updated to reflect recent developments in medicine and law. The book covers topics such as: human rights and medical law; the allocation of resources and distributive justice; ethical relativism; science and religion; and public health emergencies. Taken as a whole, this book examines the extent to which law, medicine, economics, and bioethics interact as synergistic vectors of force in shaping and setting both personal and public responses to the complexities of biotechnology, or what has been referred to as "The New Biology." All too often, past considerations of this topic have neglected to recognise the synergistic influences of law as a catalyst for codifying contemporary values into normative standards. Professor Smith reaches the conclusion that if traditional bioethical principles are to be seen as pertinent constructs for policy making, they must be broadened through the law of public health and Human rights. Law and Bioethics: Intersections along the Mortal Coil casts law as the pivotal force in bringing stability to the ongoing debates on how to maintain bioethical relevance in decision making and in so doing, it offers an excellent overview of the current bioethical issues in medical law considered in light of recent and ongoing technological developments in medicine. This book will be of particular interest to academics and students of Law, Political Science, Philosophy and Economics.

This anthology of articles collected by a cast of award-winning scholars in the field of public health illustrates that promoting and protecting human rights is fundamental to promoting and protecting health. New issues covered in this volume include: emerging technologies; family and health; responding to violence; and methods and strategies.

The eight chapters within this volume are structured around an exploration of the fundamental issues in the field of biomedical human rights: dignity and autonomy in not only procreative liberties but throughout the complete cycle of life and death, the freedom of scientific inquiry into the new biotechnological methods of collaborative reproduction, the right to genetic integrity at birth and throughout life, and the equitable right to health or access to health care benefits during life and old age. All these central issues are tested, of necessity, but utilitarian principles which, in turn, force the templates for decision making, evaluate the gravity of harm deriving from a particular human right and its recognition and enforcement measured against the utility of the social, economic, or cultural good accruing from recognition of such a right in the first instance. Ultimately, cultural relativism will be seen - more often than universality - as the determinative point of balance. This volume not only informs the ongoing debate on the role of human rights in biomedicine, but will also provide enlightened responses to the troublesome issues presented in this new age of biotechnology.

The growing globalization of medical research and the application of new biotechnologies in morally contested areas has forced a revision of international ethical guidelines. This book examines the controversies surrounding biomedical research in the twenty-first century from a human rights perspective, analyzing the evolution and changes in form and content of international instruments regulating the conduct of biomedical research. The approach adopted is comparative and includes an evaluation of human rights and UK and US law on embryonic stem cell research, the HIV/AIDS trials in the developing world, the Alder Hey Inquiry and the human radiation and nerve gas experiments on human subjects in the US and the UK. This is the first book to analyze some of the major issues in biomedical research today from an international, comparative human rights perspective.