Dare Tim
Department of Philosophy, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Paediatr Anaesth. 2009 Oct;19(10):947-52. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9592.2009.03094.x. Epub 2009 Jul 24.
Most countries grant parents rebuttable legal rights to make treatment decisions on behalf of their young children, creating a presumption in favor of parental rights. This article identifies and provides a preliminary assessment of a perhaps surprising variety of arguments for the presumption in favor of this parental right. The arguments considered include those flowing from ideas that parents are motivated by their child's best interests; that they have privileged insight into their child's preferences and capacities; that parental support has clinical significance and may be contingent upon respect for the presumption; that parents and families typically bear the burden of treatment decisions; that parents' views often have a religious basis; that it would be improper to override parents' wishes other than in conditions of complete certainty; and that parents have 'natural authority' over their children. It is unlikely that this is an exhaustive list of the arguments that could be offered in favor of the presumption, and the treatment in the paper is brief. Nevertheless, it is hoped that enough is said to suggest that it is harder to defend the presumption than we might have supposed.
大多数国家赋予父母代表年幼子女做出治疗决定的可反驳的法定权利，从而产生了有利于父母权利的推定。本文识别并初步评估了一系列支持这种有利于父母权利推定的观点，这些观点或许令人惊讶。所考虑的观点包括：父母受孩子最佳利益的驱使；他们对孩子的偏好和能力有独特的洞察力；父母的支持具有临床意义，且可能取决于对该推定的尊重；父母和家庭通常承担治疗决定的负担；父母的观点往往有宗教基础；除了在完全确定的情况下，推翻父母的意愿是不合适的；以及父母对其子女拥有“自然权威”。这不太可能是支持该推定的所有观点的详尽列表，并且本文对此的论述较为简短。然而，希望文中所述足以表明，为该推定辩护比我们想象的要困难。
