Rethinking Reproductive Injury

NICOLETTE PRIAULX Senior Lecturer in Law Cardiff Law School

Advances in reproductive medicine have increased the scope of choice in family planning; well-established procedures such as sterilisation and abortion to more sophisticated interventions such as in vitro fertilisation seemingly make possible one's wishes to avoid parenthood or desire for a child in the face of impaired fertility. Yet the availability of such interventions also increases expectations of practitioners working in reproductive medicine. Like any other area of clinical practice the techniques deployed are susceptible to human error. Those charged with responsibility for delivering such services will inevitably be exposed to the threat of litigation when clinical mishap apparently 'deprives' individuals of the ability to realise their specific reproductive wishes.

The subjective nature of reproductive choice coupled with the novelty of techniques sometimes demanded poses something of a challenge for existing categories of negligence. In particular one of the chief dilemmas arising has been in assessing whether and in what way 'injury'/'damage' has been sustained. While bodily injuries like broken bones are unproblematically seen in tort as deleterious and physical harms occasioned...

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