Anna is a feminist socio-legal researcher, whose work primarily focuses on consent, care and choice in childbirth. More broadly, she is interested in understanding how medical, social and gender norms operate to shape the way law operates and is experienced in the healthcare context.

Anna obtained a PhD in Bioethics and Medical Jurisprudence from the University of Manchester, and her doctoral work looked at the potential implications of partial ectogenesis (artificial womb technology) on consent and choice in childbirth.

As well as working on the Wellcome-funded project ‘Between Deception and Dissent’, she is involved in ongoing research with Professor Beverley Clough (Manchester Metropolitan University) which explores how birth doulas encounter and navigate law, and the inter- and intra-professional tensions they encounter. She has also written extensively about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternity care and maternity policy.

Anna has worked as a researcher on a range of projects across law and bioethics, with topics including: the intersection of donor conception and direct-to-consumer genetic testing (University of Manchester), Femtech and data harms (University of Sheffield) and assisted dying. She also has experience teaching across health law and criminal law.

Along with Professor Beverley Clough, Anna is the co-founder of the network ‘Shifting Dynamics in Medical Law’, established following a workshop funded by the Society for Legal Scholars in 2024. She is also the Co-I on the project ‘Birth Doulas as a Liminal Actor with/in Medical Law’ with Professor Beverley Clough (Manchester Metropolitan University), which is funded by Wellcome via the BA/Leverhulme Small Grant Scheme. 

Outside of academia, Anna has spent a lot of time working at Fringe Theatre Festivals around the world – and this has informed her interest in the role that storytelling and narrative art can play in research and engagement.

Research interests 

• Childbirth
• maternity care and the law
• Consent
• Obstetric violence
• Reproductive technology
•  Birth doulas

Selected publications 

Nelson, A. ‘COVID-19 and Beyond: (Re)Centring Consent in Maternity Service Policy Making’ in Halliday, S., Brione, R. and Nicholls, J. (2025). Narratives of Consent and Reproductive Subjects:

Nelson, A. and Clough, B. (2023). Episiotomies and the ethics of consent during labour and birth: thinking beyond the existing consent framework. Journal of Medical Ethics, 49(9)

Nelson, A. (2022). Should Delivery by Partial Ectogenesis Be Available on Request of the Pregnant Person? IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 15(1)

Nelson, A. and Romanis, E. (2021). The Medicalisation of Childbirth and Access to Homebirth in the UK: Covid-19 and Beyond. Medical Law Review 29(4)

Nelson, A. (2021). Vaginal Examinations During Childbirth: Consent, Coercion and COVID-19. Feminist Legal Studies 29(1)