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Book Review: Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Law

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 March 2000
Published date01 March 2000
DOI10.1177/096466390000900108
AuthorMelanie Latham
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-18I50J9whYl3h1/input 08 Reviews (jl/ho&k) 1/2/00 3:26 pm Page 164
BOOK REVIEWS
SALLY SHELDON AND MICHAEL THOMSON (Eds), Feminist Perspectives on Health
Care Law. London: Cavendish, 1998, 302pp., £19.95.
This is a very interesting and informative collection, conveniently gathering together
a wide range of the most recent thinking on health care law in relation to aspects of
gender and feminism.
The book gives many clear examples of how health care law and practice operates
to the detriment of the female patient and the female health professional, as well as
other ‘minorities’. Diverse theories are used as bases for the analysis of various aspects
of health care and gender. Underlying the majority of the chapters is support for the
new feminist ethics in relation to health and medicine, with its emphasis on caring and
context as part of health services and its critique of the potential power relationship
between doctor and patient. Jo Bridgeman uses this as a basis for her critique of the
medical treatment of children.
Some of the chapters also usefully include the most recent relevant case law, such
as that on Caesarean births by Celia Wells. Sally Sheldon’s chapter is informative on
legal issues and health care law. She offers a critique of the Bolam test of the standard
of care owed by a doctor to her patient and the English judiciary’s decision not to
challenge medical conduct more decisively. She concentrates particularly on the con-
trasting images given by judges to patients and their doctors, as evidenced by case law
judgments. Sheldon argues convincingly that, in practical terms, the entrenchment of
medical power that this has led to has meant that those doctors, particularly in obstet-
rics and gynaecology, who attempt to introduce more women-centred practices will
find themselves isolated and that patients, particularly women patients, will not be
protected or compensated by the law.
Peggy Foster argues that cancer screening for women is another example of the lack
of autonomy...

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