Jessica Bratt Carle is a Presbyterian minister, pediatric chaplain, and clinical ethicist.

Experienced chaplain and scholar Jessica Bratt Carle takes us inside ICUs and hospital rooms for a rare look into children's lives amid illness. What she learns sparks a rich debate with the bioethical ideal of patient autonomy, revealing how this default position jeopardizes not just children whose vulnerability, dependence, and agency must be respected but all of us adults who also share these traits. A wonderful window into children’s complex moral worlds and the invaluable role of theology in understanding them.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Situating Pediatric Patients in Clinical EthicsChapter 2: A Theological Response to Secularized BioethicsChapter 3: Vulnerability: Multivalent Susceptibilities and PossibilitiesChapter 4: Dependence: Human Norm, Not DeficitChapter 5: Agency: Modes of Expression and InfluenceChapter 6: Childhood as Lifelong Vantage Point

Jessica Bratt Carle is a Presbyterian minister, pediatric chaplain, and clinical ethicist.

Experienced chaplain and scholar Jessica Bratt Carle takes us inside ICUs and hospital rooms for a rare look into children's lives amid illness. What she learns sparks a rich debate with the bioethical ideal of patient autonomy, revealing how this default position jeopardizes not just children whose vulnerability, dependence, and agency must be respected but all of us adults who also share these traits. A wonderful window into children’s complex moral worlds and the invaluable role of theology in understanding them.

• IntroductionChapter 1: Situating Pediatric Patients in Clinical EthicsChapter 2: A Theological Response to Secularized BioethicsChapter 3: Vulnerability: Multivalent Susceptibilities and PossibilitiesChapter 4: Dependence: Human Norm, Not DeficitChapter 5: Agency: Modes of Expression and InfluenceChapter 6: Childhood as Lifelong Vantage Point