Dr Emily Ottley
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About
Emily is a Fellow in Medical Law and joined LSE Law School in 2026. Prior to this, she was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Winchester. Emily is interested in how the law regulates access to medical treatment that is characterised as a moral issue and subject to conflicting strongly held views, especially abortion.
Emily holds a PhD from King’s College London. Her PhD explored how the law should address third-party interference with the implementation of the decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy. This project was funded by the King’s Law School Doctoral Research Studentship. The exceptional nature of the abortion decision emerged as a key idea from Emily’s PhD, and she is currently developing this into a monograph titled Abortion Exceptionalism Reimagined for publication with Hart. Much of Emily’s recent work has focussed on safe access zones for premises providing abortion services. Emily was commissioned to undertake an international comparison of safe access zones legislation for the Scottish Health, Social Care and Sport Committee as part of its scrutiny of the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill.
Emily is a Fellow of Advance HE and she has a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.
Research
Research Interests
Emily’s work considers how the law regulates access to medical treatment that is characterised as a moral issue and subject to conflicting strongly held views, especially abortion. This sits within the areas of Medical Law, Socio-Legal Studies, and Bioethics. Emily is particularly interested in exceptionalism, safe access, and third-party interference with decision-making.