Assigning Responsibility for Children's Health When Parents and Authorities Disagree: Whose Child?

This book provides a multidisciplinary analysis of the potential conflict between a government's duty to protect children and a parent(s)' right to raise children in a manner they see fit. Using philosophical, bioethical, and legal analysis, the author  engages with key scholars in pediatric decision-making and individual and religious rights theory. Going beyond the parent-child dyad, the author is deeply concerned both with the inteests of the broader society and with the appropriate limits of government interference in the private sphere. The text offers a balance of individual and population interests, maximizing liberty but safeguarding against harm. Bioethics and law professors will therefore be able to use this text for both a foundational overview as well as specific, subject-level analysis. Clinicians such as pediatricians and gynecologists, as well as policy-makers can use this text to achieve balance between these often competing claims. The book is written by a physician with practical and theoretical knowledge of the subject, and deep sympathy for the parental and family perspectives. As such, the book proposes a new way of evaluating parental and state interventions in children's' healthcare: a refreshing approach and a useful addition to the literature.

Dr. Allan J. Jacobs is a gynecologic oncologist, a lawyer, and has also been Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at two New York teaching hospitals (Beth Israel and Flushing Hospitals) for a total of 20 years. He has authored or co-authored almost 100 papers on gynecology, health law, and bioethics. He currently practices gynecologic oncology as well as write on and teach bioethics. He has published extensively on topics that involve the tension between individual rights and government interest in promoting health and safety of the population.