Researchers involved in planning and conducting research related to cohort fertility are required to operate within the framework of legal and ethical standards. Participants in scientific research can take part in them exclusively voluntarily, taking full awareness of the stages, timing, results, and possible negative consequences of scientific work (Yegidis et al., 2017). Initially, their consent to conduct deciding or other research should be provided by the child’s parents or guardians.
After that, verbal and written permission is got from the children themselves, thus increasing their civic literacy and developing the ability to make independent choices. Throughout the process, researchers are required to ensure that the consent is prolonged (Pearson et al., 2018). This means that parental, guardian, and children’s approval is an ongoing process that the child or their legal representative has the right to refuse at any stage. All institutions involved in genetic cohort research need to be aware of the applicable ethical rules that form obligations to research participants.
The ethical side of the issue during certain studies is critically important. It must be borne in mind that research may violate human rights and also be unethical (Labott & Johnson, 2004). There are categories of citizens who are subject to ethical norms that prohibit conducting any experiments on them (Walden University Center for Research Quality, 2020). Particularly, Walden’s IRB policy forbids students to invite their own clients as research participants (National Institutes of Health Office, n.d.).
This initiative is logical since it is impossible to provide guarantees for objective research and the researcher’s choice of subjects (Ries, 2007). Moreover, with this approach, the fact of moral pressure of the researcher on the patients can be revealed, which is unethical. It must be remembered that in any research, the moral and physical safety of those who agreed to participate should remain paramount (Nicotera & Walls, 2010).
References
Labott, S. M., & Johnson, T. P. (2004). Psychological and social risks of behavioral research. IRB: Ethics & Human Research, 26(3), 11–15.
National Institutes of Health Office of Human Subjects Research Regulations and Ethical Guidelines (n.d.). Ethical principles for human subjects research. Web.
Nicotera, N., & Walls, N. E. (2010). Challenging perceptions of academic research as bias free: Promoting a social justice framework in social work research methods courses. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 30(3), 334–350.
Ries, N. M. (2007). Growing up as a research subject: Ethical and legal issues in birth cohort studies involving genetic research. Health Law Journal, 15, 1–41.
Walden University Center for Research Quality. (n.d.). Clinical and intervention settings. Web.
Yegidis, B., Weinbach, R., & Myers, L. (2017). Research methods for social workers (8th ed.). Merrill Social Work and Human Services.
Yegidis, B. L., Weinbach, R. W., & Myers, L. L. (2018). Research methods for social workers. Ethical Issues in Research (8th ed). Pearson.