Respecting bodily integrity and autonomy in pediatric populations

Children are treated differently to adults in liberal societies with respect to their right to bodily integrity. A commonly given justification for treating them differently is that they supposedly lack the sort of autonomy that is normally attributed to neurotypical adults. As such children fall through the cracks when it comes to protecting their bodily integrity: they are viewed as less than fully autonomous persons in philosophical, medical, and legal settings. With this editorial, we analyse current treatments of the concept of the child's right to bodily integrity and how this relates to their (developing or future) autonomy on various conceptions.