Autonomy and Pregnancy

Thesis Summary The title of the thesis is Autonomy and Pregnancy. Its main aim is to evaluate the extent to which pregnant women’s rights to reproductive autonomy are protected or restricted under the law and its application. The laws regulating abortion and applying to the refusal of and consent to medical treatment were selected for analysis. The thesis focusses on the laws of those jurisdictions whose legal heritage is predominantly English and/or Western European. The thesis identifies the meaning(s) of autonomy and then outlines a theoretical framework, informed by Drucilla Cornell’s work, which is adopted here because it gives an insight into the practical aspects of the exercise of autonomy and pregnancy. It also considers the concept of legal personhood focussing on both the common law’s adherence to the born alive rule and the advent of foetal protection laws.