Author Description

"From the Test Tube to the Coffin" is the forty-seventh in the series of Hamlyn Lectures and is the first one to concentrate on the field of family and private life. Mrs Justice Hale discusses the choices the law allows us in managing our private and family lives - having a child, making relationships, and at the end of life - "hatchings, matchings and dispatchings." She argues that the law is usually in favour of freedom of choice, as long as we do not wrong other people in the process. In the past it has not allowed people the same freedom in their private lives. However, in the last 30 years it has moved in that direction, but many of us are worried about the effects of this. She concludes that there should not be such great concern if these developments bring with them appropriate responsibilities towards the other people invovled, and in particular the children.