Deirdre Madden MRIA, Professor of Law, University College Cork
My research interests in medical/healthcare law and ethics really began in the second year of my undergraduate law degree in University College Cork when our lecturer told us about the first reported legal case being heard at that time involving commercial surrogacy in the UK. I was fascinated by the complexities of this arrangement, the conflicting constitutional, human rights, family law, contractual and even property law principles and public policies, the overriding paramountcy of the best interests of the child, and (rightly or wrongly) how law, politics, public morality and the media can shape the kinds of families there should be.
After graduation, I further developed this interest by pursuing a Master’s and later a PhD in assisted reproduction, surrogacy, reproductive genetics and the appropriate role of law in regulating behaviour in this most intimate and personal area of life. From there my interests broadened further to other areas of health law and ethics, including healthcare decision-making, end of life care, reproductive autonomy, professional regulation, patient safety, protection of personal health information and addressing health inequities.
I have always held the view that law is no more than a system of rules agreed and enforced by society and therefore it should always strive to be clear and understandable to everyone in society, written in plain English, as simple as possible and fair and proportionate in its intrusion into the lives of citizens. My interest in communication of the law in all its forms—its rationale, principles and values, its potential to shape and be shaped by political and public mores—ultimately made my decision to become an academic an easy one. My research has also led me to work on the practical application, implementation and communication of the law through the translation of legislation provisions and judicial decisions into policies, guidelines and codes of practice for professionals that are aimed at making comprehension and compliance easier.
One of the aspects of my work that I enjoy the most is the endless diversity and topicality of the issues that arise in the intersection of law, medicine and ethics. A reading of the newspapers on any day of the week will spark a new avenue for reflection, research and student engagement. I was deeply influenced in my early research by the author John Robertson, who is said to have put the field of law and bioethics on the law school map. Through the lens of his so-called ‘principle of procreative liberty’—meaning both the freedom to decide whether to have children as well as the freedom to control one’s reproductive capacity—Robertson captured my imagination. His analysis of the ethical, legal and social controversies in reproductive technology raised fascinating questions such as: Do frozen embryos have the right to be born? Should parents be allowed to select the sex and traits of their children? Should a government be able to force social welfare recipients to take contraceptives? These and many other socio-legal and ethical dilemmas have generated endless questions, multidisciplinary debates and policy proposals in this country and elsewhere about the beginning and ending of human life, the individual choices that societies are prepared to support, the overriding values of society that may compete with our respect for individual choices and how we decide as individuals and societies what really matters in the end.
