A right to bodily integrity – Some complications

A recent thematic issue of Clinical Ethics contains a number of papers on bodily integrity in paediatric populations. The papers assume that defining ‘bodily integrity’ is a simple matter, and that the main ethical and legal issue is to define when breaches of bodily integrity in pre-autonomous children can be justified. This paper will argue that defining bodily integrity raises specific problems in the paediatric context because the child has a body that is continually developing. The problems will be illustrated by analysing one of the commonly used definitions in the literature, and by considering the developing brain as a body part.