ABSTRACT
Legal institutions and discourses play a significant role in constructing disciplinary power relations and regulating action, in relation to such areas as work, family, the professions, education, and medicine. The legislation process, especially in the area of technology, science, medicine, entails the mobilisation of experts in formulating laws, in preparing legislation that will enjoy legitimacy and function effectively. Special procedures concerned with the permanent suppression of reproductive functions such as sterilisation, castration and change of sex, also call for strict regulation. Legal justification is required in order to administer medical care without the individual's consent. The principle of citizen autonomy in the law also makes a concession to instrumental or practical goals which state agents have or support. The person is understood as endowed with rationality and freewill, solely responsible for her actions. The right to bodily integrity is regarded as fundamental, and a key attribute of the person, who is entitled to exercise control over it.
