Attitudes of French laypeople toward children’s medically-assisted dying

Abstract

The issue of medically-assisted dying in pediatric care, including euthanasia and deep sedation, is ethically complex. Despite its relevance, no research has applied Information Integration Theory to evaluate the acceptability of these practices in pediatric care, which is what we did in the present study. A sample of 166 French laypeople read 54 scenarios involving end-of-life situations involving children and assessed the acceptability of a physician’s decision in each one. Scenarios included four factors: child’s discernment capacity, child’s request to die, parental consent, and physician’s action. Parental consent and the child’s request were the most influential factors in respondents’ judgments, followed by the child’s discernment and physician’s action. Cluster analysis revealed four groups: “Situation-dependent,” “Always acceptable,” “Not acceptable except in rare circumstances,” and “Parental consent.” Most people were sensitive to situational factors influencing the acceptability of children’s medically assisted dying.