Affirming the Decisions Adolescents Make about Life and Death

• Published in: The Hastings Center report Vol. 27; no. 6; pp. 29 - 40
• Main Authors: Weir, Robert F., Peters, Charles
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-11-1997; The Hastings Center; Hastings Center
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Advance Care Planning; Advance directives; Advance Directives - legislation & jurisprudence; Bioethics; Child welfare; Children; Children & youth; Children's rights; Chronic Illness; Death; Disclosure; Diseases; Dissent and Disputes; Empirical Research; Ethical aspects; Female; Freedom; Group Processes; Health care; Health policy; Humans; Informed Consent; Legal consent; Legal status, laws, etc; Male; Medical care; Medical Decision Making; Medical ethics; Medical treatment; Parents; Patient Advocacy; Pediatrics; Personal Autonomy; Physicians; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Right to Die; Right to refuse treatment; Risk Assessment; Statutory law; Teenagers; Terminal Illness; Terminally Ill - legislation & jurisprudence; Treatment refusal; Trust; United States; Youth; United States; American Academy of Pediatrics; Professional Patient Relationship; Death and Euthanasia
• ISSN: 0093-0334; 1552-146X
• DOI: 10.2307/3527716

Adolescents who are critically, chronically, and terminally ill traditionally have been given little voice in their health care treatment. But over the last three decades attitudes have begun to shift. The legal and medical professions as well as parents and children's advocates have started to recognize that cognitively normal adolescents have decisionmaking capacity and believe these patients ought to have the opportunity to participate in even the toughest of health treatment decisions. Advance directives, if used with sensitivity and care, could prove a valuable means of giving these older pediatric patients a say in their care.