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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2009
This CQ department is dedicated to bringing noted bioethicsts together in order to debate some of the most perplexing contemporary bioethics issues. You are encouraged to contact “The Great Debates” department editor, D. Micah Hester (hesterdm@uams.ed), UAMS/Humanities, 4301 W. Markham St. #646, Little Rock, AR 72205, with any suggestions for debate topics and interlocutors you would like to see published herein.
1. National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Research Involving Children: Report and Recommendations. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977.
2. American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics. Informed consent, parental permission, and assent in pediatric practice. Pediatrics 1995;95:314–17 (reaffirmed in 2006).
3. It is worth noting that the concept of “adolescence” was not employed by scholars until the late 19th century (G. Stanley Hall was the pioneer of adolescent psychology) and not seriously constructed as a theory of development until the mid-20th century (cf. Perret-Catipovic M, Ladame F, Slotkin P. Adolescence and Psychoanalysis: The Story and the History. London: Karnac Books; 1998). It was around the same time (mid-20th century), that pediatric medicine began to focus on teenagers specifically (see Prescott HM, A Doctor of Their Own: A History of Adolescent Medicine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1998). Some, like Jeffery Spike (from a presentation to the Florida Bioethics Network in October 2008), have argued that a more useful (because it is less ambiguous) designator to use is “teenager,” as the term is specifically delimited by age.
