Ethical position of medical practitioners who refuse to treat unvaccinated children

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (8) ◽  
pp. 552-555
Author(s):  
Melanie Forster
Keyword(s):  
Medical Association ◽  
Conscientious Objection ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Ethical Position ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Refusal To Treat ◽  
The Right

Recent reports in Australia have suggested that some medical practitioners are refusing to treat children who have not been vaccinated, a practice that has been observed in the USA and parts of Europe for some years. This behaviour, if it is indeed occurring in Australia, has not been supported by the Australian Medical Association, although there is broad support for medical practitioners in general having the right to conscientious objection. This paper examines the ethical underpinnings of conscientious objection and whether the right to conscientious objection can be applied to the refusal to treat unvaccinated children. The implications of such a decision will also be discussed, to assess whether refusal to treat unvaccinated children is ethically justifiable. The best interests of both existing and new patients are crucially important in a doctor’s practice, and the tension between these two groups of patients are contemplated in the arguments below. It is argued that on balance, the refusal to treat unvaccinated children constitutes unjustified discrimination.

Is ‘best interests’ the right standard in cases like that of Charlie Gard?

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D Truog
Keyword(s):  
Harm Principle ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Clinical Decisions ◽  
Disabled Children ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Harm Principle

Savulescu and colleagues have provided interesting insights into how the UK public view the ‘best interests’ of children like Charlie Gard. But is best interests the right standard for evaluating these types of cases? In the USA, both clinical decisions and legal judgments tend to follow the ‘harm principle’, which holds that parental choices for their children should prevail unless their decisions subject the child to avoidable harm. The case of Charlie Gard, and others like it, show how the USA and the UK have strikingly different approaches for making decisions about the treatment of severely disabled children.

scholarly journals Voluntary vaccination: the pandemic effect

Legal Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Cave
Keyword(s):  
Policy Option ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Compulsory Vaccination ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
National Public Health ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Global Nature ◽  
The Right ◽  
Voluntary Vaccination

Justification of a voluntary vaccination policy in England and Wales rests on tenuous foundations. Two arguments against voluntary vaccination are gaining ground. The first is that globalisation necessitates preparedness strategies for pandemics. Assuming sufficient supply, compulsory vaccination of adults and children constitutes a potential policy option in the context of a severe, vaccine-preventable pandemic outbreak. The second argument is that children have a right to preventive medicine and thus to vaccination. The influence of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its emphasis on parents as the trustees of their children's best interests, and the increasingly global nature of our collective and individual responsibilities with respect to the transmission of vaccine-preventable disease present challenges to the right to refuse vaccination on our own behalf and on behalf of our children. Exploring methods of compulsion and persuasion utilised across Europe, the USA and Australia, this paper argues that necessity and proportionality must be reassessed, and national public health law and policy setting out a graduated and proportionate approach to compulsory vaccination developed as a matter of priority.

scholarly journals CONSENT TO TREATMENT AND OTHER MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS: LEGISLATIVE AND SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (12) ◽  
pp. 2816-2820
Author(s):  
Natalia D. Kogut ◽  
Serhii Y. Petriaiev
Keyword(s):  
Best Interests ◽  
Next Of Kin ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Mentally Disabled ◽  
Medical Interventions ◽  
Consent To Treatment ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Right ◽  
Medical Articles ◽  
Personal Interests

The aim: To research approaches to maintaining balance between social and personal interests in the sphere of human right to consent to medical interventions. Materials and methods: The research is conducted with help of both general and special juridical methods of investigation. The empirical basis: an international legal acts; domestic laws of EU countries, the USA and other states; courts' decisions; statistics; juridical and medical articles. Conclusions: Consent to medical interventions is an absolute right of mentally capable adults and restriction of this right is never too necessary for social interest except for limiting measures due to pandemic or psychiatric disorders threaten. Next of kin or guardian has the right to consent for minors or mentally disabled in their best interests.

Trial by Triad: substituted judgment, mental illness and the right to die

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107154
Author(s):  
Jacob M Appel
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Depressive Disorders ◽  
Substituted Judgment ◽  
Diminished Capacity ◽  
Accepted Standard ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Aid In Dying ◽  
Incapacitated Patients ◽  
The Right

Substituted judgment has increasingly become the accepted standard for rendering decisions for incapacitated adults in the USA. A broad exception exists with regard to patients with diminished capacity secondary to depressive disorders, as such patients’ previous wishes are generally not honoured when seeking to turn down life-preserving care or pursue aid-in-dying. The result is that physicians often force involuntary treatment on patients with poor medical prognoses and/or low quality of life (PMP/LQL) as a result of their depressive symptoms when similarly situated incapacitated patients without such depressive symptoms would have their previous wishes honoured via substituted judgment. This commentary argues for reconsidering this approach and for using a substituted judgment standard for a subset of EMP/LQL patients seeking death.

Beyond Willpower: Strategies for Reducing Failures of Self-Control

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela L. Duckworth ◽  
Katherine L. Milkman ◽  
David Laibson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Intervention ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
The Right ◽  
Do The Right Thing

Almost everyone struggles to act in their individual and collective best interests, particularly when doing so requires forgoing a more immediately enjoyable alternative. Other than exhorting decision makers to “do the right thing,” what can policymakers do to reduce overeating, undersaving, procrastination, and other self-defeating behaviors that feel good now but generate larger delayed costs? In this review, we synthesize contemporary research on approaches to reducing failures of self-control. We distinguish between self-deployed and other-deployed strategies and, in addition, between situational and cognitive intervention targets. Collectively, the evidence from both psychological science and economics recommends psychologically informed policies for reducing failures of self-control.

What of the Child? Preventing the Publication of Children's Names After the Age of 18

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Sophy Baird
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Child Victims ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Right

Children are afforded a number of protections when they encounter the criminal justice system. The need for special protection stems from the vulnerable position children occupy in society. When children form part of the criminal justice system, either by being an offender, victim, or witness, they may be subjected to harm. To mitigate against the potential harm that may be caused, our law provides that criminal proceedings involving children should not be open to the public, subject to the discretion of the court. This protection naturally seems at odds with the principle of open justice. However, the courts have reconciled the limitation with the legal purpose it serves. For all the protection and the lengths that the law goes to protect the identity of children in this regard, it appears there is an unofficial timer dictating when this protection should end. The media have been at the forefront of this conundrum to the extent that they believe that once a child (offender, victim, or witness) turns 18 years old, they are free to reveal the child's identity. This belief, grounded in the right to freedom of expression and the principle of open justice, is at odds with the principle of child's best interests, right to dignity and the right to privacy. It also stares incredulously in the face of the aims of the Child Justice Act and the principles of restorative justice. Measured against the detrimental psychological effects experienced by child victims, witnesses, and offenders, this article aims to critically analyse the legal and practical implications of revealing the identity of child victims, witnesses, and offenders after they turn 18 years old.

scholarly journals Access and the non-custodial parent in the Republic of Ireland

2020 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-215
Author(s):  
Anne Egan
Keyword(s):  
Best Interests ◽  
Family Court ◽  
Rights Of The Child ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Custodial Parent ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Custodial Parents ◽  
The Right

Maintaining a relationship between parents and children following the breakdown of a marriage or relationship can be fraught with difficulties, particularly where acrimony exists between parents. This article explores the right of a non-custodial parent to have access to their child under Irish law and discusses the results of an interview-based study undertaken by the author using qualitative research methods. The interviewees in the study included practitioners as well as separated, divorced and unmarried fathers and mothers who outlined their views on access and the study found that the majority of non-custodial parents had some level of access to their child. The article further outlines the author’s experience of successfully applying to attend family court as a bona fide researcher and discusses some of the results of observations in those courts which reinforced the results of the interview-based study. Article 9(3) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that in the event of separation of parents, it is the right of the child to maintain personal relations and contact with both parents. Article 7(1) of the Convention further supports the right of a child to be cared for by his or her parents. These articles have proved useful for fathers’ rights campaigners who advocate that they should have more contact with their children post-separation. The Convention, however, while ratified by Ireland, has not yet been incorporated into Irish law. The article concludes by examining whether the incorporation of the Convention would advance the rights of Irish children to maintain a relationship with their parents, unless such a relationship would be contrary to the children’s best interests. In light of this, this article examines the proposed wording of the Constitutional Referendum on Children which was published in early 2010 and assesses what impact the passing of such a referendum would have on children’s rights in Ireland.

scholarly journals Legal Status Of The Caspian Sea: History And Present

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ardak Kapyshev
Keyword(s):  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Oil Fields ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
The Caspian Sea ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Near Future

At  the  present  stage  one  of  the  unsolved   problems in  interstate relations of  Caspian bordering countries is defining international­legal status of the Caspian Sea. It is noted in the article that this problem is not a new one at all. The history of “division” of the Caspian Sea begins in the ancient age, namely in VIII century. It is underlined that the basic stumbling block  is the position of Iran on the right to use the Caspian Sea, and also occurrence of extra regional players, such as  the USA, China, etc. First of  all, it is connected with rich oil fields and other minerals, and also with convenient geopolitical and geostrategic position. The only way to worry out the international­legal delimitation of the Caspian Sea problem is a negotiating process. By now, despite of  certain disagreements on  legal status of  the Caspian Sea, five Caspian bordering countries managed to achieve certain progress, admitting the possibility of applying the principle of sectorial sectioning on the Caspian Sea.  Clear proof  of  it is the agreements on  division of ground on the northern part of Caspian Sea signed between Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan. It is important that Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan clearly stated their positions and agreed to make a compromise in their official statements. More than likely, in the near future Iran will soften its position, considering its present  situation and   strained relations with the USA. It has been alleged that the constructive  dialog  already  started; everything depends on  the mobility,  concurrency and rationality of actions of all Caspian bordering countries.

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