FACE 12 - Legal and ethical issues in diagnosis of FASD
This event was held on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 t the Stanhope Beach Resort & Conference Centre, Prince Edward Island, Canada as part of the 12th Annual FACE Research Roundtable. Click here for a list of other session from this conference.
The 12th FACE Research Roundtable was organized by the Motherisk Program and sponsored by the Brewers Association of Canada.
Presenter:
- Bernard M. Dickens, OC, PhD, LLD, FRSC, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Medicine and Joint Centre for Bioethics Co-Director, International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme, University of Toronto
In Canadian law, pregnant women are held to owe no enforceable duties of care to their children before birth. However, health care providers may be responsible, to children and their mothers, to warn pregnant women of reasonably foreseeable and preventable harms to their unborn children. Meconium testing at birth in hospitals, and at births elsewhere where feasible, may become part of the standard of care owed to newborn children if treatments are found beneficial to children’s development. Mothers’ consent may not be legally required for meconium testing. Testing of newborn children that identifies the health status or behaviour of their mothers has raised ethical concerns in the context of HIV infection. Tests that show FASD may not have comparable implications, but raise similar ethical concerns for instance of prior notification of pregnant women, and confidentiality.
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Sponsors
The 12th FACE Research Roundtable was organized by the Motherisk Program and sponsored by the Brewers Association of Canada.
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