The regulation of the body provides an important concern in law, medical practice and culture. This comprehensive new volume explores how conceptions of self, liberalism, property and harm inform and influence contentious legal and ethical questions about what we can and cannot do to or with our own bodies.

Contents: Preface; Introduction - being human: of liberty and privilege, Margaret Brazier; Part I Regulating Reproduction: Introduction to part I, Helen Beebee; Nothing and not-nothing: law's ambivalent response to transformation and transgression at the beginning of life, Mary Ford; Regulating reproduction:frozen embryos, consent, welfare and the equality myth, Sonia Harris-Short; Persons and their parts: new reproductive technologies and risks of commodification, Heather Widdows. Part II Interspecies Embryos: Introduction to part II, Stephen W. Smith; Legislating interspecies embryos, Marie Fox; Humanity, divinity, and interspecies embryos, Robert Song. Part III Transforming the Body: Introduction to part III, Kate Ince; Less is more: body integrity identity disorder, R.C. Smith; Medicine, governmentality and biopower in cosmetic surgery, Victoria Pitts-Taylor. Part IV Self-Harm and Self-Determination: Introduction to part IV, Colin Warbrick; A duty to treat? - a legal analysis, Mr Justice Munby; Bursting the autonomy bubble: a defence of the Court of Appeal decision in R (on the application of Oliver Leslie Burke) v GMC, Claire McIvor; Liberalism and constraining choice: the cases of death and serious bodily harm, G.R. Sullivan; Index.

Dr Stephen W. Smith is Lecturer in Law at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. His research specialism is medico-legal issues at the end of life. He has published widely on this and related areas. Ronan Deazley is Professor of Law, Law School, University of Glasgow. His research interests focus primarily upon the history and theory of copyright law, the interface between legal regulation, photography and the dissemination of the image, and the nature and significance of the public domain and the intellectual commons. He has published numerous books and articles on this and related areas.