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Open research questions in Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare

27 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,070 Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Using illustrative cases, we highlight salient themes surrounding these challenges that span many tenets of pediatric bioethics, including beneficence (ie, weighing benefits against harms), imposing values to impact shared decision-making, and justice (ie, lack of standardization in processes creating risk for discrimination).

    Ethical Considerations When Referring Patients for a Higher Level of Care · 2026 · DOI

  • A key strength of this study is its focus on both parental and child perspectives, providing a nuanced understanding of how families engage in and prefer to engage in health communication. The qualitative approach allowed for in-depth exploration of experiences, highlighting specic areas where communication practices can be improved. The staged approach of asking parents in a survey the same questions and topics that would form the basis of the child interviews likely provided reassurance to parents who were nervous about their child participating in research. Several limitations should be noted. The sample was self-selected, which may have introduced selection bias, as participants with strong views on health communication may have been more likely to participate. Additionally, although a diverse range of geographic locations across NZ and ethnic backgrounds were represented, the study will not fully capture the experiences of children with disabilities or those from non-English speaking backgrounds, warranting further investigation. Because of the nature of the parent survey, in-depth probing was not possible, and the results presented are only a snapshot of children and their parents’ experiences and not a detailed, nuanced understanding.

    Communicating health messages to children and families in primary care: a mixed-methods study in Aotearoa New Zealand · 2026 · DOI

  • Even well-crafted informed consent mandates, however, are insufficient to promote truly deliberative decision making because they oversimplify the complexity of these decisions and fail to respond to the fact that informed consent is a process that requires more than simply the delivery of information; it also requires dialogue and discussion.

    The Politics of Information: Informed Consent in Abortion and End-of-Life Decision Making · 2013 · DOI

  • We argue that the prevailing policy acceptance of destroying affected embryos, and allowing research on embryos up to 14 days leaves some staff with rarely reported, ambivalent feelings.

    The embryo as moral work object: PGD/IVF staff views and experiences · 2008 · DOI

  • Their perspectives provide insights into women's experiences with the formal medical system from an understudied social location, and their narratives expand our understanding of how women's and girls' sexuality is socially constructed as problematic and managed, controlled, and regulated in particular ways depending on their social locations.

    Denied, Embracing, and Resisting Medicalization · 2007 · DOI

  • The concept of so-called parental autonomy in making treatment decisions for children and situations in which they may be limited by the assessment of doctors and by the supervisory function of the guardianship court.

    Legal and Ethical Issues of Discontinuing Futile Therapy in Children · 2023 · DOI

  • The lack of consensus on its definition and the difficulties in measuring it objectively, mean that basing clinical decisions solely on QoL has some risks.

    An Ethical Pathway to Quality of Life in Critically Ill Newborns · 2021 · DOI

  • The case still remains controversial, and the treatment consisting of growth attenuation, hysterectomy, appendectomy and breast buds removal has both its opponents and proponents.

    Shaping the body of a child. Invasive medical procedures on incompetent patients – some ethical and medical remarks on Ashley’s case. · 2020 · DOI

  • When lifesaving medical resources such as organs or medical technologies are scarce, how should they be distributed? Among the patients needing such resources, who should be selected, and how? James F.

    Justice, Reason, and Luck in Rationing Lifesaving Medical Resources · 2013 · DOI

  • The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology committee recommends against members performing a hymenoplasty or other female genital cosmetic surgeries due to a lack of data concerning their safety and efficacy.

    Make Her a Virgin Again: When Medical Disputes about Minors are Cultural Clashes · 2013 · DOI

  • The fundamental protection for research subjects, namely their full informed consent before any recruitment, is not tenable in true emergency situations and so other approaches are warranted if standards are to be improved by human subjects research in such areas.

    Emergency research in children: options for ethical recruitment · 2011 · DOI

  • The necessity for performing abortion in the third trimester is thus a result of good knowledge of techno-medicine but also from the limited information it provides.

    Legal and medical aspects of the ethics committee’s work relating to abortion · 2011 · DOI

  • The unique ethical issues related to conducting research with children are insufficiently distinguished from issues in working with vulnerable groups, despite a shift to recognizing children as active in the research process.

    Tapping the Perspectives of Children · 2004 · DOI

  • While the issue of decisions regarding life-sustaining therapy for critically ill or impaired newborns and young infants remains controversial, there has been an evolution in law, ethics, and policy.

    Ethics in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Beyond · 2001 · DOI

  • To implement this recommendation, evidence for\nand against the contention that the new reproductive technologies cause\nserious or devastating physical, psychological, or social harm to the\nresulting children should be investigated more thoroughly than at\npresent.

    "Give Me Children or I Shall Die!" New Reproductive Technologies and Harm to Children · 1996 · DOI

  • As a result of the complexity and apparent contradictions of the law, the circumstances under which minors may consent remain unclear in the minds of many practitioners.

    Legal and ethical issues concerning children's rights of consent. · 1993 · DOI

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27 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,070 Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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