Patients in critical care lose their capability to make a judgement, and constitute a 'vulnerable population' needing special and reinforced protection. Even if the standard of informed consent is an essential way of demonstrating respect for the patient's autonomy, the usual informed-consent procedure is not as applicable as required or sufficient to warrant this ethical principle in critical ...

Among bioethicists, and perhaps ethicists generally, the idea that we are obliged to respect autonomy is something of a shibboleth. Appeals to autonomy are commonly put to work to support legal and moral claims about the importance of consent, but they also feed a wider discourse in which the patient’s desires are granted a very high importance and medical paternalism is regarded as almost self...

Abstract Persuasive online technologies were initially designed and used to gain insights into the behavior of individuals personalize advertising campaigns in an effort influence people convince them buy certain products. But recently, these have blurred lines morphed that covertly gradually manipulate attaining a goal is predetermined by algorithm disregards decision-making rights individual....

Convinced of hope's therapeutic benefits, physicians routinely support patients' false hopes, often with family collusion and vague, euphemistic diagnoses and prognoses, if not overt lies. Bioethicists charge them with paternalistic violations of Patient Autonomy. There are, I think, too many morally significant exceptions to accept the physician's rationales, or the bioethicist's criticisms, s...

BACKGROUND The first vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer has been licensed, and in future, vaccination may be routinely offered to 10-14 year old girls. HPV is a sexually transmitted virus and some parents may refuse consent for vaccination. Under-16s in the UK have a right to confidential sexual health care without parental consent. We investigated parents' views ...

Competent patients who refuse life saving medical treatment present a dilemma for healthcare professionals. On one hand, respect for autonomy and liberty demand that physicians respect a patient's decision to refuse treatment. However, it is often apparent that such patients are not fully competent. They may not adequately comprehend the benefits of medical care, be overly anxious about pain, o...

Universal ethical principles can be used to analyse problems in reproductive health. The principle of beneficence obligates people to strive to bring about more beneficial consequences than harmful ones. The principle known as respect for persons presumes that all human beings have dignity and are worthy of respect. Showing equal respect for women as persons means recognizing their autonomy and...

new criticism focuses on rigorous analysis of poetry and literature, irrespective of peripheral issues. its fundamental tenet is the autonomy of literary texts. therefore, new criticism shuns dealing with such peripheral issues as authors’ biography, social, political and historical events; since this approach considers all these issues as non-artistic. in principle, the followers of new critic...

The ethical principle of respect for patient autonomy and the legal principle of patient self-determination, gives individuals the right to make their own health care decisions. Advance directives and Do-Not-Resuscitate documents were designed to allow people the opportunity to express their treatment preferences for situations when they cannot communicate those preferences themselves. Unfortun...

abstract background: one of the important factors in the prediction of family planning outcome is paying attention to women’s role in decision making concerning fertility and household affairs. with the improvement of women’s status and autonomy, their control over fertility is expected to increase. the present study aimed to investigate the association between women’s autonomy and family plann...