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Child Health Advice and Parental Obligation: The Case of Safe Sleep Recommendations and Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy
Author(s) -
Jonas Monique
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
bioethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.494
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-8519
pISSN - 0269-9702
DOI - 10.1111/bioe.12174
Subject(s) - temptation , obligation , advice (programming) , compliance (psychology) , population , deliberation , medicine , best interests , psychology , social psychology , environmental health , law , political science , politics , computer science , programming language
This article considers whether there is a parental obligation to comply with child health advice which is aimed at the general population and grounded in population‐based research. Drawing upon the concept of role obligations, I argue that there is a temptation to use child health advice as a set of rules to which parents are morally obligated to comply, but that this temptation should be resisted. Using the case of Safe Sleep recommendations, designed to reduce the risk of sleep‐related infant deaths, I present three reasons for doubting that parents are obligated, as a matter of course, to comply with child health advice. I suggest that, rather than compliance, deliberation about child health advice is obligatory, and that parents should have reasons for not following credible child health advice.