WHAT ARE ‘BEST INTERESTS’? A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF ‘BEST INTERESTS’ DECISION-MAKING IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

The Ashley Treatment: best interests, convenience, and parental decision-making.

The story of Ashley, a nine-year-old from Seattle, has caused a good deal of controversy 1 Ashley was born with a condition called static encephalopathy, a severe brain impairment that leaves her unable to walk, talk, eat, sit up, or roll over. According to her doctors, Ashley has reached, and will remain at, the developmental level of a three-month-old. 2 In 2004, Ashley's parents and the doct...

Beyond Best Interests

I. The Problem with Best Interests: A Framework; a Justificatory Idiom; and a Problem ................................. 1192 A. Framework: The Three Dimensions of State Interventions Aimed at Influencing Reproduction .............................................................. 1192 B. Justificatory Idiom: Best Interests of the Resulting Child Justifications, Their Attraction and Prominence .....

Treatment in patients’ best interests

A note on the current state of the law as regards balancing the autonomy, and personal values, of a mentally incapacitated patient against treatment plans with which they do not agree. The author summarises the outcomes of two medical treatment cases heard by the Court of Protection, with similar facts and different results, by way of adding to the advice to practitioners for their communicatio...

Who Determines Children's Best Interests?

In the best interests of society.

Each year, exposure to violent trauma takes its toll on the development of millions of children. When their trauma goes unaddressed, children are at greater risk for school failure; anxiety and depression and other post-traumatic disorders; alcohol and drug abuse, and, later in life, engaging in violence similar to that to which they were originally exposed. In spite of the serious psychiatric/...