The harm paradox

"Offering the first comprehensive theoretical engagement with actions for wrongful conception and birth, the author examines the significance of these questions in explaining the recent retraction of liability for claims of 'unsolicited parenthood' in the UK. Centralising gender as a critical axis of enquiry, the author argues that the concept of autonomy, though an important value for promoting women's reproductive freedom, is transforming into a reproductive expectation. Not only has autonomy become central to the law's response that enforced parenthood is a harmless outcome, but as Priaulx reveals, similar discourses have come to inhabit the reproductive landscape generally. Seeking to challenge such accounts and pernicious assumptions that inform them, the author questions: 'Just what is it that we value about the concept of autonomy?'"--BOOK JACKET