ABSTRACT
This chapter must begin with a confession, or, at least, the confirmation of an open secret. We share with Margaret Brazier a deep scepticism about the law’s ability to give appropriate and meaningful moral force to the fundamental ethical principle of respect for autonomy. This will come as no surprise to any reader familiar with Brazier’s work, or indeed ours. In this chapter, however, we want to combine forces (with the passive and unknowing input of Brazier by way of her scholarship) to argue that autonomy must come with responsibility. More particularly, this chapter focusses on autonomy within the family and the responsibilities that we all owe to each other within the family unit as genetically, and more socially, defined.
