ABSTRACT
Medical treatment and medical research in children are dominated by the principle of consent, for it is consent which elides the civil or criminal consequences of a technical or a more serious assault. The law has always been that anything done to a child without the consent of its parents is unlawful. In occasional instances, the behaviour of parents in relation to the medical treatment of their children may appear so unreasonable as to warrant paternalistic intervention by the doctor, or even recourse to the courts. The gap between treatment of the minor and research on children is bridged by the subject of experimental treatment, a matter which becomes increasingly significant as medical technology advances ahead of legal and moral enquiry. An action in negligence might arise were the consent found to be flawed, the most likely contention being that it was based on insufficient information.
