Does Pediatrics Need Its Own Bioethics?

Perspectives in Biology and Medicine - Tập 53 Số 4 - Trang 613-624 - 2010
John D. Lantos1
1University of Missouri at Kansas City, Children's Mercy Bioethics Center, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO 64108, USA. [email protected]

Tóm tắt

Pediatric bioethics raises unique issues because children are constantly growing, developing, and changing. The ethical issues that arise for newborns are different from those that arise for seven-year-olds or 17-year-olds. Furthermore, children do not develop cognitive capacities or moral reasoning skills at the same rate. Thus, it is difficult to generalize about what is appropriate or inappropriate for children in either the clinical or the research setting. This article responds to some of the issues raised by a new volume of essays about pediatric bioethics. It puts these issues into historical context by examining the implications of Saul Krugman's famous studies on the etiology and prevention of hepatitis at New York's Willowbrook State School.

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