HEC Forum | Special Thematic Issue | “Childhood and Disability”
Guest Editor: Erica K. Salter, PhD
Saint Louis University, Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics
From growth attenuation therapy for severely developmentally disabled children to the post-natal management of infants with trisomy 13 and 18, pediatric treatment decisions regularly involve assessments of the probability and severity of a child’s disability. Because these decisions are almost always made by surrogate decision-makers (parents and caregivers) and because these decision-makers must often make decisions based on both prognostic guesses and potentially biased quality of life judgments, they are among the most ethically complex in pediatric care. Ethics committees of pediatric hospitals are regularly discussing questions like, “What is the value of a short, disabled life1?”, “What kind of treatment decisions should parents be allowed to make on behalf of their severely disabled child?”, “What can we truly know about the future life experiences of a child with disability?” and “What kind of factors, beyond biomedical, can we incorporate into treatment decisions?”
This special thematic issue of HEC Forum invites authors to reflect on and explore ethical concerns related to pediatric care and disability. Papers might engage topics like treatment decisions for extremely premature infants, postnatal management of infants with Trisomy 13 or 18, the Baby Doe Regulations, growth attenuation therapy, or prenatal genetic testing.
Authors should submit manuscripts (3500-6000 words) for consideration through HEC Forum’s Editorial Manager online gateway. Be sure to choose “SI: Childhood and Disability” as the manuscript type. The due date for manuscripts is 10th January 2017.
HEC Forum is a blinded, peer reviewed journal. All submissions will be sent out for the journal’s usual blinded peer review process for consideration for publication. Inquiries to the guest editor, Erica K. Salter, are welcome.