Abstract
This chapter examines the tension that can surface when the more collaborative nature of family-centred health care confronts the representation of individual legal rights, particularly the rights of children, in legal disputes. After a brief introduction to some general issues that can arise, and a short historical review of the legal developments that recognized a broader range of different viewpoints within the family, the chapter considers three different factual scenarios with a view to showing three different sorts of problem: when parents disagree, when parents agree in a way that is problematic for the best interests of the child, and when parents agree but the child has autonomy rights that conflict with that agreed view. In each scenario the law’s approach to the problem is explored in some detail. The chapter finishes with some concluding remarks that point to the important difference in law between an impartial and an impersonal point of view. When the law protects individual rights it can be impartial, but it cannot be impersonal.
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