Infanticide - Ethical Aspects in the Light of Nuffield Council on Bioethics Guidelines and Its Regulation in English Common Law
Abstract
Development in fetal and neonatal medicine enabled children who previously would have died to survive and lead healthy lives. The same developments also arise ethical, social and legal dilemmas for those families and health professionals who are faced with complex decisions that may have lifelong consequences not only for the children but also for their relatives.
The ethical issues concern the value of human life at different stages of development, distinction between active ending of life and death resulting from withholding or withdrawing care or balancing the interests of affected children, their families and needs of other social groups. In the United Kingdom there have been several cases since early 1980s which centred on issue as to whether there are circumstances that permit parents, doctors or the courts to take a decision that a severly malformed children should not be provided with life-saving treatment.
The paper provides a brief legal analysis of several British cases and also analysis of Nuffield Council on Bioethics guidelines regarding this issue from an ethical point of view. It introduces the most common dilemmas which occure in practice and the way these dilemmas are solved under English common law.