Ethics in the Life Sciences – Expert reports by the DRZE; Volume 12
Joachim Boos / Tade Matthias Spranger / Bert Heinrichs

Under the responsibility of the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences published by Dieter Sturma, Dirk Lanzerath and Bert Heinrichs.

Research with minors constitutes a particular ethical challenge within the field of medical bioethics, especially when it is entirely without direct benefit. On the one hand, children and teenagers have a right to adequate medical care, which can only be guaranteed by means of research activities that include underage subjects. On the other hand, it is ethically highly questionable to conduct research with minors who are unable to give consent to their participation based on informed and well-justified self-determination. It proves to be very difficult to arrive at ethically convincing considerations because ethical protection and good consequences obviously have a different ethical weight. Although research with minors increases in the praxis, a thorough assessment of the arguments shows that both in the medical as well as in the medical-ethical research an ethically and legally clarified room for the handling of minors is yet to be found.

The present expert report provides the basis for this by outlining the medical, legal and ethical problems concerning research with minors.

ISBN: 978-3-495-48436-4

Publisher: Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg

Year of publication: 2010

Price: € 18,- (paperback)

Pages: 165, German (21,4 x 13,9 cm)