Margaret Brazier

Margaret Rosetta "Margot" Brazier (née Jacobs; 2 November 1950 – 4 March 2025) was a British academic who was a professor at the University of Manchester's School of Law.^[1]Margaret Jacobs was born in Preston, Lancashire on 2 November 1950. She was married to Rodney Brazier, a professor of constitutional law also at the University of Manchester.

Life and career

Brazier researched legal issues in the field of medicine, including medical ethics.^[1] She was a barrister, ex-member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (1998–2001),^[2] Editor of the Medical Law Review,^[3] and ex-president of the Society of Legal Scholars (formerly, Society of Public Teachers of Law) (1997–1999).^[4] Brazier was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2014, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.^[5]

She chaired a number of committees, including:

• Chair of the Animal Procedures Committee 1993–98.^[6]
• Chair of Review of Surrogacy Arrangements 1996–98.^[7][8]
• Chair of the Retained Organs Commission 2001–2004.^[9]
• Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Critical Care Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine: Ethical Issues 2004–2006.^[10]

Brazier wrote the first edition of her textbook Medicine, Patient and the Law in 1987.^[11] The 7th edition was published in 2023,^[12] along with her monograph, Law and Healing: A History of a Stormy Marriage.^[13][14]

Brazier's academic work is commemorated in a special edition of the journal Medical Law Review^[15] and a 2016 festschrift called Pioneering Healthcare Law: Essays in Honour of Margaret Brazier.^[16]

Brazier died on 4 March 2025, aged 74.^[17][18]

Recognition

• Order of the British Empire (1997).
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (1993).
• Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2007).^[19]
• Queen's Counsel (honoris causa) (2008).^[20]
• Fellow of the British Academy (2014).^[5]