Parental Rights, Best Interests and Significant Harms

Imogen Goold is Associate Professor and Jonathan Herring is Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.Cressida Auckland is Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at London School of Economics and Political Science.

• Imogen Goold, Cressida Auckland and Jonathan Herring1. Setting the Scene – Supporting and Informing Shared Decision-Making at the Bedside: Avoiding and De-escalating Conflict between Clinicians and Families Emily Harrop2. Evaluating ‘Best Interests’ as a Threshold for Judicial Intervention in Medical Decision-Making on Behalf of Children Imogen Goold3. Parental Decisions and Court Jurisdiction: Best Interests or Significant Harm? Rachel Taylor4. The Legal Basis of the Court’s Jurisdiction to Authorise Medical Treatment of Children Rob George5. In Defence of a Conditional Harm Threshold Test for Paediatric Decision-Making Dominic Wilkinson6. The Harm Threshold: A View from the Clinic Giles Birchley7. Beyond Best Interests: A Question of Professional Conscience? Jo Bridgeman8. Preserving the Therapeutic Alliance: Court Intervention and Experimental Treatment Requests Sara Fovargue9. Futility Cressida Auckland10. Vulnerability and Medical Decisions Concerning Children Jonathan Herring11. Resolving Disagreements about the Care of Critically Ill Children: Evaluating Existing Processes and Setting the Research Agenda Louise Austin and Richard Huxtable

In this important collection, the editors bring together a range of perspectives, including clinical, legal and philosophical, with a view to informing the debate as to whether the law should change. Crucially, it is a book that has a real chance of informing that debate because of the way in which the editors have approached their task.