Editorial: Critically ill children and best interests

GMC. Treatment and Care Towards the End of Life: Good Practice in Decision Making. London: GMC, May 2010 (in force 1 July 2010), para 95

McHaffie HE , in association with Fowlie PW , Hume R , Laing IA , Lloyd DJ , Lyon AJ . Crucial Decisions at the Beginning of Life: Parents' Experiences of Treatment Withdrawal from Infants. Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2001

GMC. Treatment and Care Towards the End of Life: Good Practice in Decision Making, May 2010 (in force 1 July 2010), paras 104, 106, 107;Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Withholding or Withdrawing Life Sustaining Treatment in Children: A Framework for Practice. 2nd edn. London: RCPCH, 2004

Baines P . Death and best interests. Clin Ethics 2008;3:171–5; Baines P. Death and best interests: a response to the legal challenge. Clin Ethics 2010;5:195–200

Both of which I responded to in Bridgeman J. A response to ‘Death and best interests’. Clin Ethics 2009;4: 15–18, to which he, in turn, responds below

Lyons B . Children, best interests and the courts – a response to Bridgeman. Clin Ethics 2010;5:188–94. While the application of the best interests test to justify sterilization in Re P (A Minor) (Wardship: Sterilisation) [1989] I WLR 182 is rightly criticized, Re P fits within the body of jurisprudence from the late 1980s and early 1990s where the sterlization of girls and women with learning difficulties were permitted with very little consideration of their interests. As the approach to determination of best interests in sterilization cases concerning adults as stated in Re A (medical treatment: male sterilisation) [2000] 1 FLR 549 and Re SL (adult patient: medical treatment) [2000] 2 FLR 452 has been expressly adopted in decisions about the medical treatment of children, as explained above, we can legitimately expect a more thorough analysis of the relevant interests in future cases. Elliston S. The Best Interests of the Child in Healthcare. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis, 2007: 53–61

Johnson J . Agreeing with the judge at first instance, in Re A (a child) [2000] All ER(D)1202

Fox M , McHale J . In whose best interests? MLR 1997;60:700–9, 8

Bridgeman J . Parental Responsibility, Young Children and Healthcare Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, chapter 4

Eekelaar J . Beyond the welfare principle. CFLQ 2002;14:237–49

Including uncertainty covering judicial prejudice, failure to provide guidelines for use, poor track record; incompatibility with children's rights; admitting, or failing to admit, the interests of others. Herring J . Farewell welfare? JSWFL 2005;27:159–71, 168, 169, 170

Bainham A . Do babies have rights?' CLJ 1997;56:48–50; Michalowski S, ‘Is it in the best interests of a child to have a life-saving liver transplantation? Re T (Wardship: Medical Treatment)’. CFLQ 1997;9:179–89

Alderson P , Hawthorn J , Killen M . The participation rights of premature babies. Int J Children's Rights 2005; 13:31–50; GMC. 0–18 years: guidance for all doctors, 2007, para 7; GMC. Treatment and Care Towards the End of Life: Good Practice in Decision Making, May 2010 (in force 1 July 2010), para 90

McLaughlin J . Conceptualising intensive caring activities: the changing lives of families with young disabled children. Sociol Res 11 (Online). See http://www.socresonline.org.uk/11/1/mclaughlin.html (last checked 29 November 2010)