WUNRN
University of Toronto, Canada
International
Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Programme
Article
authors are Co-Directors of Programme.
Noted thanks to International
Federation of Gynecologists & Obstetricians
(FIGO) for permission to translate
article into Spanish. Programme
graduates Sandra Dughman and Mercedes Cavallo translated into Spanish.
Computer setting can adjust typesize
for easier reading.
ETHICAL
AND LEGAL APPROACHES TO "THE FETAL PATIENT"
by B.M. Dickens and R. J. Cook (2003) 83
International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 85-91.
The concept of fetuses being "patients" can serve
a benign protective, cautionary purpose, alerting
healthcare providers and pregnant women to the
implications that medical treatment can have for
fetuses. The concept allows women to provide the
children they intend to deliver with the care
they consider appropriate. A negative effect
occurs, however, if healthcare providers decide
to treat pregnant women according to providers'
own views of the best interests of fetuses, and
compromise patients' care and self-determination
without their informed consent. Some activists
advocate rights of fetuses for the purpose of
limiting pregnant women's self-determination.
Recognition that fetuses have legitimate
interests, rather than rights, is common, and
opens a way to balancing various competing
interests without compromising patients' rights
to decide on their medical care. Courts of law
generally favor this approach, and tend to allow
few limits on women's choice of indicated medical care while pregnant.
Full text of English original can be downloaded from:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=944915
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LOS CRITERIOS ÉTICOS Y JURÍDICOS DEL "FETO COMO PACIENTE"
La conceptualización del feto como "paciente"
sirve un propósito benigno de carácter
proteccionista y preventivo cuando advierte a los
proveedores de salud y a las mujeres embarazadas,
de las consecuencias que un tratamiento médico
tiene sobre el feto. Dicha noción permite a la
mujer brindar los cuidados que ella considera
apropiados al infante que tiene la intención de
traer al mundo. Sin embargo, puede traer consigo
un efecto negativo cuando los proveedores de
salud deciden tratar a la mujer embarazada de
acuerdo a concepciones personales sobre el
interés superior del feto; comprometiendo el
cuidado de la paciente y su autodeterminación,
sin mediar consentimiento informado. Algunos
activistas defienden los derechos del feto con el
objeto de limitar la autodeterminación de la
mujer embarazada. Comúnmente se reconoce que el
feto tiene un interés legítimo y no un derecho,
ponderando diversos intereses en conflicto sin
comprometer el derecho que toda paciente tiene a
decidir sobre su tratamiento médico. Los
tribunales de justicia favorecen esta visión y
sólo permiten algunas limitaciones al derecho de
la mujer embarazada a elegir el tratamiento médico indicado.
Texto en linea:
http://www.law.utoronto.ca/documents/reprohealth/SP24-fetal-patient.pdf
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