Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 14, 2026

A Familiarization Protocol Facilitates the Participation of Children with ASD in Electrophysiological Research
Published on: July 31, 2017
Minors and informed consent: a comparative approach
Loes Stultiëns1, Tom Goffin, Pascal Borry
1Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, Catholic University Leuven.
Abstract:
The European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe provides in article 6 for special protection of persons who are not able to give free and informed consent to an intervention in the health field, e.g. minors. According to the second paragraph of this article it is up to domestic law to decide whether and under which conditions a minor is capable of taking autonomous decisions in the health field. In the present article an overview is given of the legal regulations in place regarding the position of minors in a health care setting in the EU Member States that have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine namely Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. As the overview will show, the legal position of minor patients in a health care setting varies from country to country. This in view of the system they have opted for as well as the age and circumstances under which minors are allowed to take health care decisions autonomously.
Related Concept Videos
Ethical Dilemmas I
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...
Nurses' Legal Responsibilities I
The legal responsibilities of a nurse regarding informed consent include the following:
Ethics in Research
Bioavailability Study Design: Healthy Subjects Versus Patients
Obedience
Milgram's Obedience to Authority

