Publications of Kristina Orfali

Basic pillars of legal thinking on the human body in the Hungarian medical law: dignity, self-determination and the principle of noncommodification

For many centuries, the human body has been treated as one with the person by virtue of a legal fiction. However, for some time now, biotechnological progress has enabled us to disassociate the two. Indeed, we live in an age where the body has become an object of scientific enquiry, its parts transplanted into another’s body, or considered merely as biological material for use by others. As a result, what we can do with the body and its parts has become increasingly important for society, and its protection becomes a central concern. It is this concern which is examined in this book through the study of seventeen different jurisdictions, and their respective cultures. Several issues are examined here: in all the countries studied, how is the human body distinguished from the person herself? Does the law protect the body, and if so, to what degree? Is an individual under a duty to protect her own body? What legal principles have been adopted in order to ensure that the body is protected? Do the principles reveal a common philosophical approach or are they rather the result of cultural diversity? If the principles are violated, what recourse does the individual have? At the heart of this book is the exploration of how the human body in all its states, living or dead, is confronted by biomedical progress as witnessed by the twenty-two contributions from an international and multidisciplinary perspective. Law, anthropology, philosophy, ethics and sociology all have a take on the subject. The comparative nature of the work draws together lawyers from Europe, North and South America, North Africa, Turkey and Japan. Such a legal journey, interspersed with other disciplinary analyses, will enable the reader not only to understand how different laws treat the human body, but also to appreciate the fundamental values which underpin how the human body is protected in a variety of countries and cultures.

Reconciling traditional families with in vitro assistance: The Hungarian Legal Framework on Kinship in the Light of Biomedical Intervention

“If there is no humanity without language, nor can there be a society without parenthood. But what does it mean to be a parent?” This question from Claude Levi-Strauss is at the heart of this international and multidisciplinary study analysing the upheavals to legal family ties currently being brought about by biomedicine. As a result of the heady advances in new biomedical practices, a number of questions concerning parenthood need to be addressed. Who will be the legal father and mother of a child when infertile men and women are able to procreate? Will the child still have two parents of different sexes, or could it sometimes have three, or even four? What about the emergence of the concept of parenting and of the role of DNA testing in determining parentage? Legal experts, philosophers and sociologists from twenty countries with different cultures debated these issues, among many others, during the fifth workshop of the Réseau universitaire International de Bioéthique (RUIB – International University Network on Bioethics). Stemming from these debates, the articles brought together in this collection explore the extent to which new biomedical practices have revolutionised access to parenthood in these countries. There can be no doubt that because this topic touches on sexuality, the body and reproduction – different concepts in different cultures – one conclusion stands out: although the life sciences have now won, at least in part, control of the imparting of life, the effects of biomedicine on the legal structure of the family differs considerably from one country to the next. A rapprochement between the various systems studied would be most welcome.