Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, this volume explores the reality of the principle of human dignity - a core value which is increasingly invoked in our societies and legal systems. This book provides a systematic overview of the legal and philosophical concept in sixteen countries representing different cultural and religious contexts and examines in particular its use in a developing case law (including of the European Court of Human Rights and of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights). Whilst omnipresent in the context of bioethics, this book reveals its wider use in healthcare more generally, treatment of prisoners, education, employment, and matters of life and death in many countries. In this unique comparative work, contributing authors share a multidisciplinary analysis of the use (and potential misuse) of the principle of dignity in Europe, Africa, South and North America and Asia. By revealing the ambivalence of human dignity in a wide range of cultures and contexts and through the evolving reality of case law, this book is a valuable resource for students, scholars and professionals working in bioethics, medicine, social sciences and law. Ultimately, it will make all those who invoke the principle of human dignity more aware of its multi-layered character and force us all to reflect on its ability to further social justice within our societies.
Object of fascination and fantasy, the female body can be idealized, reified or shrouded. “It is we who make women what they are worth and that is why they are worthless”, proclaimed Mirabeau in the days of the Enlightenment, to which Aragon later replied: “Woman is the future of Man”. The ambiguities of the female body are therein exposed.
This work examines the relationship between the female body and biomedicine. Many possibilities are offered to women through biomedical techniques: from assistance to procreate (with assisted reproduction) to refusal to do so (contraception, voluntary sterilization, termination of pregnancy); to be informed of genetic predispositions (through the use of available genetic tests); or to improve their physical appearance with cosmetic surgery. But a recurrent question arises: with its rapid progress and its extreme medicalization of the body, can biomedicine liberate women? Or rather, given the risks of the commodification of the body or its parts, is it not a source of exploitation ?
The authors of this work, jurists, anthropologists, philosophers, sociologists and doctors, have explored these questions. The contributions from nineteen countries in this international multidisciplinary study analyse the reality of the amazing developments of biomedicine on the female body. Numerous systems are compared for the first time; European, African, North and South American, but also Chinese and Japanese. Beyond highlighting differences, and identifying similarities in the development of “enhancement medicine”, the objective of this work is ultimately to show the complexity surrounding the question of a woman’s freedom over her body and the extent to which this is limited by the State.
