Informed consent

According to Section 630d of the German Civil Code, the practitioner is obliged to obtain the patient's consent before carrying out a medical measure, in particular an intervention in the body or health. The practitioner must ask the patient expressly and unambiguously whether he or she consents to the measure, after having properly informed him or her in advance in an understandable manner.

Effective, i.e. informed, consent is the justification for the practitioner to inflict bodily harm associated with the treatment, so that the bodily harming treatment measures, insofar as they are covered by consent, do not give rise to criminal or tort liability on the part of the practitioner.

The term informed consent has been used since 1979 by the American author David Finkelhor as a justification for a general rejection of sex with children. Finkelhor formulated that children, and in some cases adolescents, can willingly consent to sexual acts, but in doing so they do not overlook the implications of such consent. Accordingly, they did not knowingly (informed) consent to the act, regardless of whom they were consenting to. Finkelhor's studies demonstrated dramatic harm in a large proportion of abuse victims, but not all. He thus found a developmental psychological argument against sexual acts with children that does not necessarily rely on proof of harm, thus sparing the victim humiliating investigations if necessary.

Informed consent has no relevance to the legal consideration of sex with children as sexual abuse; most states have an age of consent below which sexual activity is prohibited.

The concept of knowing consent was countered by proponents (advocates) of pedophilic relationships such as Walter Bärsch, Rüdiger Lautmann and Ernst Bornemann.