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Minors and Contested Medical-Surgical Treatment

Where Are We with Best Interests?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2016

JEANNE SNELLING
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Abstract:

Use of the best-interests test as the legal standard to justify medical treatment (or its cessation) in respect to legally incompetent adults or minors has come under sustained critique over the years. “Best interests” has variously been alleged to be indeterminate as well as susceptible to majoritarian ideology and inherent bias. It has also been alleged to be inferior to rights-based approaches. Against the background of several particularly hard cases involving minors discussed by Gillett in a prior article in this journal, this article considers some of these critiques. It concludes that these critical accounts make significant contributions to enabling a more procedurally and substantively robust consideration of what might be in a child’s best interests. However, it is argued that none of these accounts alone provide a superior framework that would justify jettisoning the concept of best interests. Further, it is suggested that best interests still has an important role in achieving patient-centered decisionmaking in this context. It concludes by suggesting a taxonomy of considerations when determining best interests.

Keywords

minorsconsentmedical treatmentbest interestsrights
Type
Special Section: The Best Interests of a Child: Problematic Neuroethical Decisions
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 50 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

Notes

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