Integrating feminisms’ perspectives into the legal curriculum: Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Law

This chapter discusses Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Law, which was edited by Sally Sheldon and Michael Thomson and published in 1998. It was the first in a series of Routledge-Cavendish collections published predominantly towards the end of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s, which brought together scholars to explore feminist perspectives on specific subjects in the UK law curriculum. The contributors to Feminist Perspectives on Health Care Law addressed topics which might be expected in any collection on health law - matters relating to consent, autonomy and reproduction, for example – as well as topics which might not immediately be thought of as matters of ‘feminist’ concern – such as the regulation of professions, the ubiquitous Bolam test, or resource allocation. In so doing, they raised readers’ awareness of the importance of considering feminist and other perspectives and readings of law, and encouraged, challenged, and/or inspired them to undertake such analysis and critique for themselves. They did more than this too. In showing how feminist perspectives could draw attention to how law may operate and affect particular groups in practice (intentionally or otherwise), other disparities and matters of intersectionality were also highlighted.