Parental role in medical decision-making: fact or fiction? A comparative study of ethical dilemmas in French and American neonatal intensive care units

Neonatal intensive care has been studied from an epidemiological, ethical, medical and even sociological perspective, but little is known about the impact of parental involvement in decision-making, especially in critical cases. We rely here on a comparative, case-based approach to study the parental role in decision-making within two technologically identical but culturally and institutionally different contexts: France and the United States. These contexts rely on two opposed models of decision-making: parental autonomy in the United States and medical paternalism in France. This paternalism model excludes parents from the decision-making process. We investigate whether parental involvement leads to different outcomes from exclusively medically determined decisions or whether “technological imperatives” outplay all other factors to shape a unique, ‘medically optimal’ outcome.