- PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Frances is a final year DPhil Researcher at St Edmund Hall College, University of Oxford. She is the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker for Woman's Hour 2026.
Her thesis draws on thousands of women's testimonies to create the first comprehensive framework to understand the causes and consequences of harms experienced by women in UK NHS maternity wards. She is a leading voice in the need to align closer with global consensus on the human rights violations inherent in these harms. Her broader expertise spans medical law (e.g. consent, capacity and coercion), equality law and international human rights law.
Frances has recently presented her research at the Mexican Supreme Court, Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology World Congress and the General Medical Council, amongst others.
She was Convenor and Chair of the Medical and Family Law Discussion Group 2022-2023 and founder of the Medical and Family Law Student Collaborative Hub. She is a Guest Lecturer at the University of Oxford, specialising in Obstetric Violence. In her spare time she hosts the Oxford Human Rights Hub podcast.
Experience
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2022–presentDPhil Candidate, Medical Law and Ethics
Education
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2022University of Oxford, BCL (LLM)
Publications
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2026Perceptions of Consent for Operative Vaginal Delivery: A Service Evaluation, Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
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2026What Louise Thompson’s campaign tells us about the national maternity crisis, University of Oxford News
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2025Obstetric Violence and the judicialisation of maternal health rights violations in Mexico, International Platform on Obstetric Violence
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2025Minimising Obstetric Violence: More than a Lack of Kindness, The Polyphony
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2025Reflecting on Challenges to the Concept of Obstetric Violence, Durham University Obstetric Violence Blog
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2025The Criminal Justice and Courts Act in the Obstetric Context, British Society of Criminology
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2024Is Shame so Bad? Distinguishing Shame, Guilt and Embarrassment, Shame and Medicine Blog
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2024Reviewing past and present consent practices in unplanned obstetric interventions: An eye towards the future, Journal of Medical Ethics
Contact Frances for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
