Preface

Summary

The origin of this book lies in a series of articles I wrote, mainly for the Edinburgh Law Review, following upon the ground-breaking House of Lords ruling in McFarlane v. Tayside Health Board in 2000. I admit to being amongst those who found that unanimous decision hard to accept and I followed its fallout with increasing interest. Cambridge University Press were kind enough to agree to a proposal that we consolidate the results into a coherent monograph and this has resulted in The Troubled Pregnancy. It will, however, be apparent that what started as a relatively simple fancy rapidly became a major academic exercise. The more I looked at the individual index cases, the more I became involved with the subject both on a historical and an international basis. The result was a major expansion of the anticipated text.

Inevitably, then, the book has taken some time to write – and this has not been helped by the acquisition of the occasional metal joint and of a serious bout of two-fingered repetitive strain injury. It has, therefore, been particularly prone to the well-known hazard that medical law is a moving target. At the same time, it has provided a welcome opportunity to reflect on what has gone before or, so to speak, to ‘learn on the job’ – to put it in perspective, I still think McFarlane was wrong but I doubt if it was as wrong as I thought it was five years ago! I must, therefore, ask the reader's forgiveness if, at times, it looks as though I have changed my mind between Chapters 1 and 8 – indeed, I may well have done so.