Children’s Well-Being and the Family-Dilemma

Abstract

Physicians are sometimes confronted with cases of child-maltreatment where they suspect that parents have harmed their child. In such cases physicians are typically confronted with two conflicting duties: on the one hand they have to report cases of child-maltreatment to the youth welfare office. On the other hand they are bound by their professional confidentiality which entails that they have to keep intimate information especially from public institutions like the youth welfare office. This paper points out that this situation is particularly awkward in cases of insufficient evidence where still parents seem to have maltreated their child. Such cases are called cases of family-dilemma because both duties apply at the same level. This paper firstly analyses the structure of the family-dilemma and secondly discusses a possible solution to it. The upshot of the discussion is that a solution of the family-dilemma is only within reach when core values of the liberal society like ‘parental autonomy’ and ‘privacy of the family’ are redefined.