The Fetus as a Patient A Contested Concept and its Normative Implications [Hardcover]

Due to new developments in prenatal testing and therapy the fetus is increasingly visible, examinable and treatable in prenatal care. Accordingly, physicians tend to perceive the fetus as a patient and understand themselves as having certain professional duties towards it. However, it is far from clear what it means to speak of a patient in this connection.

This volume explores the usefulness and limitations of the concept of fetal patient against the background of the recent seminal developments in prenatal or fetal medicine. It does so from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. Featuring internationally recognized experts in the field, the book discusses the normative implications of the concept of fetal patient from a philosophical-theoretical as well as from a legal perspective. This includes its implications for the autonomy of the pregnant woman as well as its consequences for physician-patient-interactions in prenatal medicine.

1.The Fetus as a Patient  a Sustainable Approach for Clinical Interactions in the Field of New Prenatal Medicine? - Dagmar Schmitz, Angus Clarke, Wybo Dondorp

Part II: The Fetus as a Patient: A useful concept?

2. The Disposable and Protected Fetus: Contradictions in Fetal Status - Lucy Frith

3. Which Ethics for the Fetus as a Patient? - Claudia Wiesemann

4.The Ethical Concept of the Fetus as a Patient: Responses to its Critics - Laurence B. McCullough, Frank A. Chervenak

5.Treating the Fetus as a Patient: Possible Implications for its Moral Status - Katrin E. L?rch- Merkle

Part III: The Fetus as a Patient: Where does that leave the pregnant woman?

6. Insights from a Perspective of Cultural Anthlc<