ABSTRACT
An invitation to write can be counted on to provoke a response. One can feel flattered, intimidated, overwhelmed or, perhaps, obliged. The invitation we received was to write a chapter on the ways in which feminist legal scholarship (FLS) has engaged with the issue of health. It was a welcome invitation. Writing such a chapter would not be a problem, we thought. We began by making a decision to focus on FLS in the United Kingdom, while noting the migration of key ideas from elsewhere. Next we turned to health; this proved more difficult to pin down. It clearly meant more than the absence of illness, more than a focus on cures. But how, for instance, did it relate to disability? Was there a non-discriminatory way to understand that relationship, one that would not biomedicalize difference, seeing the need for a cure when neither illness nor suffering was present? There was also the question of how we should handle the social determinants of health. Equally, how should we handle the wide range of newer discourses – on genetics, vulnerability, well-being and pandemic preparedness – that have been altering both planning priorities and individual choices? Moreover, when viewed through FLS, wasn’t it medical and, later, health law that should be the core concern rather than health itself?
