Bones and justice: ethical dimensions of the use of skeletal age diagnosis for forensic purposes

Abstract

Forensic bioethics is a branch of bioethics that has traditionally enjoyed little interest. The aim of this thesis is to focus on skeletal age diagnosis, a popular forensic procedure in Turkey, to explore the ethical dimensions of the procedure. Since the concept of age is important for regulating civil life as well as criminal behavior, given that there is distrust in legal certifications about age in Turkey, forensic age diagnosis is widely used both on voluntary grounds and upon court demand. In Turkey, skeletal age diagnosis is used in all forensic age diagnosis procedures, often as the only method. Arguing that bioethical problems are often entangled with technical issues as well as their applications in particular sociohistorical contexts, I explore the ethical problems concerning skeletal age diagnosis together with the technical problems and legal regulations. Moving from the basic concepts of bioethics such as nonmaleficence, beneficence and respect for autonomy, I seek to discuss how these problems are related to social problems like underage marriage in the context of Turkey. While doing this, I also discuss the differences between forensic bioethics and bioethics in therapeutic medicine, and how the forensic physician’s dual role as medical and legal professional shapes the ethical concerns in the forensic context.