The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: Relevance and Application to Pediatric Clinical Bioethics (original) (raw)
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This article provides support for the use of a particular international human rights law document, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in contemporary pediatric bioethics practice without relying on the legally binding force of the document. It first demonstrates that the CRC's core commitments and values substantially overlap with the core commitments and values of mainstream bioethics and with the laws of many domestic jurisdictions where mainstream bioethics are currently practiced. It then explores some implications of this overlap. For instance, the substantial international human rights law scholarship on how to understand these commitments and values can be helpful in suggesting ways to operationalize them in domestic bioethics practice and can offer insightful, internationally generated ethical perspectives that may not have been considered. The article also argues that the CRC can help health-care organizations develop policies consistent with the best...
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Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2016
This article offers a child rights theory in pediatric bioethics, applying the principles, standards, and norms of child rights, health equity, and social justice to medical and ethical decision-making. We argue that a child rights theory in pediatric bioethics will help pediatricians and pediatric bioethicists analyze and address the complex interplay of biomedical and social determinants of child health. These core principles, standards and norms, grounded in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), provide the foundational elements for the theory and a means for better understanding the complex determinants of children's health and well-being. Rights-based approaches to medical and ethical decision-making provide strategies for applying and translating these elements into the practice of pediatrics and pediatric bioethics by establishing a coherent, consistent, and contextual theory that is relevant to contemporary practice. The proposed child rights theory extends evolving perspectives on the relationship between human rights and bioethics to both child rights and pediatric bioethics.
BMJ Paediatrics Open, 2020
Global challenges to children’s health are rooted in social and environmental determinants. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) articulates the rights required to address these civil-political, social, economic and cultural determinants of child well-being. The principles of child rights—universality, interdependence and accountability—define the tenets of social justice and health equity required to ensure all rights accrue to all children, and the accountability of individuals and organisations (duty-bearers) to ensure these rights are fulfilled. Together, the CRC and child rights principles establish the structure and function of a child rights-based approach (CRBA) to child health and well-being—that provides the strategies and tools to transform child health practice into a rights, justice and equity-based paradigm. The 30th anniversary of the CRC is an opportune time to translate a CRBA to health and well-being into a global practice of paediatrics and child hea...
Beyond Bioethics: A Child Rights–Based Approach to Complex Medical Decision-Making
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2016
This analysis adopts a child rights approach-based on the principles, standards, and norms of child rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)-to explore how decisions could be made with regard to treatment of a severely impaired infant (Baby G). While a child rights approach does not provide neat answers to ethically complex issues, it does provide a framework for decision-making in which the infant is viewed as an independent rights-holder. The state has obligations to develop the capacity of those who make decisions for infants in such situations to meet their obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill their rights as delineated in the CRC. Furthermore, a child rights approach requires procedural clarity and transparency in decision-making processes. As all rights in the CRC are interdependent and indivisible, all must be considered in the process of ethical decision-making, and the reasons for decisions must be delineated by reference to how these rights were considered. It is also important that decisions that are made in this context be monitored and reviewed to ensure consistency. A rights-based framework ensures decision-making is child-centered and that there are transparent criteria and legitimate procedures for making decisions regarding the child's most basic human right: the right to life, survival, and development.
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This article examines the potential implications of U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on the health and well-being of children in the United States. The article reviews the relevant provisions of the CRC and U.S. law, along with the health status of U.S. children. It finds that ratification could lead to measures that most Americans already support and that could improve the health status of children.