The following from the Encyclopedia of Everyday Law seems relevant to the discussion:

Fifty years ago, the issue of medical treatment of minors—children under the age of 18—would never have been considered controversial. At that time, parental consent was required for almost any type of medical treatment, as it was required for any other situation involving children. Minors were simply not considered competent to make medical decisions.

However, the past 50 years have witnessed a gradual expansion of the rights of minors, and health care has been no exception. Minors who previously had no medical rights now found themselves in the position of making decisions about the most intimate medical procedures.

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Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have laws that explicitly give minors the authority to consent to contraceptive services, and twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia specifically allow pregnant minors to the obtain prenatal care and delivery services without parental consent or notification.

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Also, because the Supreme Court rulings, states that do not explicitly allow minors to obtain contraceptive and prenatal care services without parental consent still must permit this to happen in practice, as the court has ruled that these are services that are covered by the minors' right to privacy. However, states can still impose limitations on minors' ability to obtain these services, based on factors such as age, marriage status, medical condition or who referred the minors for treatment. In addition, two states—Utah and Texas—prohibit the use of state funds to provide contraceptive services to minors without parental consent.

Much More Here

Fabulous information! Thank you! Wish I had thought of that in my lengthy discussions here over the weekend.

I am gleeful about these rights for minors.

Thanks for this useful info (you are always very helpful in this area). Why do you think the states found it necessary to pass these laws? (laws that it would appear were not necessary more than 50 years ago).

Is it because parents can no longer be trusted to do what is in the best interest of the child? Or is it what is said above ' Minors were simply not considered competent to make medical decisions', BUT minors are now competent?

Don't you at least find it 'odd' that having sex at the age of 13 makes a minor competent to make medical decisions?

In other words the younger one has sex the younger one is competent to make medical decisions? The age at which one has sex has nothing to do with how competent they are.

If one of the basic assumptions here is that these minor have poor parents, why would we also assume these minors are competent to make medical decisions? Who teached these minors to make them compentent about medical decisions? Those same parents that didn't teach them the birds and the bees and the parents the child doesn't feel they can talk to?

Well it seems to be 50/50 as far as rights are conerned.

I wonder which states and which demographics are reflected in these laws? It would reveal a lot about regional values and which values are best at keeping unwanted teen pregnancy and abortions down and which have the opposite effect.

I think teen STD rates should also be considered in a comparative analysis between socio-econimic groups. Do you have any projections that might indicate future HIV infection rates? Do you think blacks are more prone to HIV than whites for genetic reasons and that maybe these programs will doom blacks to high rates of HIV infections like in some part of Africe where it is 20-44%.

Personally, I think that perceived genetic race barrier to HIV is a speed bump at best. I think the differences are cultural and the more our culture begins to reflect their values of sex the more our statistics are going to mirror theirs.

I am somewhat speculating here, but I think as the second paragraph in the text I quoted above states, it is a part of a broader expansion of rights for adolescents.

Now, as to why THAT might be the case, I guess that it is part of the general trend towards stronger individual rights that emerged in the 60's -- and an elaboration on the reasons behind NOT allowing them certain choices -- ie the ability to make an informed consent.

Broadly, society and the law have moved away from the concept that minor children are the property of their parents. For example, 50 years ago, a parent could have insisted that a minor child leave school at whatever age was allowed by law (generally 16) and go to work on the parents' farm or business, without compensation. In most states, that would not now be allowed, and even where legal, most of us would strongly object.

As it relates specifically to health care in general (ie not specifically related to reproductive rights), it is a matter of pragmatism. In cases such as communicable diseases, alcohol or drug abuse, for example, the first priority, from the perspective of the community, is to obtain treatment, and, just as with adults, confidentiality is key to the patients' willingness to seek treatment.

As it relates to reproductive rights (including birth control, abortion, or prenatal care), a series of SCOUS decisions, starting with Roe v Wade have largely mandated minor rights to access.

I don't think any of this is in any way predicated on the assumption that the parents are NOT qualified to make the decisions.

If minors with parents need the right to seek treatment without parental consent than one has to assume this has something to do with the parents LACK OF willingness to seek treatment for their child (which in a few cases is true based on religious beliefs).

Otherwise there would be no need to allow a minor to seek treatment without parental consent (i.e. if the parent was willing the minor would get the treatment).

Maybe my logic is poor but to me this is an assumption that the parent would NOT be willing to seek treatment and thus does NOT have the minors best interest in mind.

I don't see it as necessarily having anything to do with whether or not the parents are willing or able to give consent. It is with the minor's capability to make the choice.

For the same reason that you might not seek treatment for the clap, or for alcoholism or drug addiction if your employer would find out (which used to be the case with many employer-sponsored health plans, BTW), minors may well not seek treatment for those if that means parental permission or disclosure.

Minor's capability to make the choice.

I don't see where you address my questions on why we should assume a minor has the capability to make a choice (yes they will have the RIGHT to make one but that doesn't mean that are competent to make one).

While this has been fun I don't see where we have anywhere else to go here. I guess I just feel for those GOOD parents that would 'step up to the plate' IF this info was disclosed to them that will never have the chance.

Yes, I'll be told I'm nuts and that these good parents are rare (i.e. the old if the parents were good the minor would of gone to them in the first place). I'm not buying this.

We are a very selfish society. This is being passed on to our children. So I can see girls from good homes with good parents using third parties for these 'services' just because they don't want to deal with their parents because they might have their cell phone taken away! Trust me, I hope I'm all wet.

I suppose the point I would make is that our society generally assumes that individuals have the capacity to make informed decisions (not necessarily "good" ones, however) in all cases where except where it is clearly not the case. So, for example, quite severely mentally handicapped adults or those with serious mental disorders generally get to make those decisions as well.

BTW, I have worked for health clinics in three different states which did provide birth control for teenagers without parental consent, and in all cases, birth control was prescribed only following serious discussion, which included a strong recommendation that parents be consulted prior to proceeding -- and in many cases, parents did come in to meet with the doctor or nurse practitioner.

Perhaps my own attitude is as it is in part because our daughter came to me (at age 17) and asked me to take her to the clinic for her birth control prescription. (Was one of my happier moments as a father, to realize that she was trusting enough to come to me.)

Individuals have the capacity to make informed decisions:

Yes, I agree with this, BUT:

Isn't it fair to say that these laws are based on the assumption that parents do NOT have the capacity to make informed decisions but the minor does. So then we are back to the AGE concept. YES, 17 I'm going to assume the minor has the capacity, but at 13? I'm NOT going to assume they do. But of course it isn't safe to assume the parents of a 13 year old having sex does either. So lets 'error' on the side of the minor. OK, I see the logic there.

One other point; Note above that one poster (I believe she is a young college women since she is going to school), is gleeful that minors have these rights.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the word gleeful, but to me this looks like the issue is being framed as a US verses THEM issue (child verses parent rights issue). Ok, minors need these rights, but is this something to be gleeful over? Should one look at this as a civil rights issue (I AM gleeful about granting full rights to women, all races, gays). But I don't view the minor \ parent right convict in the same light.

I suppose I am the sort of libertarian who believes that ANY case of someone's choices being made for him/her by someone else should be limited to those where there is a clear need to do so.

To me, allowing a teenager to make most healthcare decisions is simply a matter of my belief that it is not right to have someone else, no matter how benevolent, have that control over them. Of course, to the extent that the parents control the checkbook and exercise veto power over that boob job etc, I am on board with that as well.

In the case of our daughter, from the time she entered Jr High, we signed a release for our local health clinic authorizing her to receive any care short of surgery without specific further approval. Of course, it large part that was due to our level of trust in her.

So I guess each state can allow the voters to determine what these 'clear needs' are and at what age.

You know all those restrictions they are placing on teen driving (e.g. only one teen in a car at a time). Parents have sued the state saying that these law violate their rights as well as their kids. Of course these laws do restrict their rights but stats have shown there is a clear need to do so (multiple teen deaths in accidents went way down).

Sounds OK to me! Looks like I'm also that 'sort of libertarian'!

Rather than taking a kid's right away to go somewhere with his/her friend(s) they should have required more driving competency to get a drivers license. Kids should have to have more time behind a wheel before getting a license. I see kids driving all alone who are extremely bad drivers all the time.