Conclusion to 'Persons, Parts and Property'

In this concluding chapter we will not seek to summarise all the points made throughout the volume. Rather we bring out from these discussions some practical proposals for how the law might move forward. Three models for reform will be outlined: – The law should recognise that human bodily material is subject to the laws of property that apply to other ‘things’. The tissue could then be owned, sold, stolen, commercially exploited, given away, and so on and these dealings would be governed by the developed principles of property, tort, criminal and other areas of law relevant to property. We shall call this the ‘property model’. – Parliament should pass a statute governing the storage, use and control of bodily material, reflecting a balance between individual and communal interests in different contexts. We shall call this the ‘statutory model’. – The courts should develop an ad hoc approach to bodily material allowing the case law to grow organically. We shall call this the ‘ad hoc model’. These three models will be developed in more detail shortly. We will indicate the issues which all models need to address and those specific to each. The aim is not to fully flesh out any proposal, but to set out clearly the issues which will be raised with each model. Before undertaking that task, a few further comments on the academic debates will be useful.