What are the general rules surrounding parental consent?

The general rule in America, in all states, is that parents do get to make decisions on behalf of their children about medical treatment. And, generally speaking, those decisions are not challenged by state authorities. That rule has certain limitations, and I’ll just outline some of them. First of all, the major limitations that parents are required to act with the best interest of the child in mind. They can’t consent or refuse to consent the procedures simply because they don’t like it. They really do have to consider the best interest of the child. Now of course, if the procedure is questionable, if it could go with simply one way or the other way, parents are presumed to act in the best interest of the child but at the same time, for example, parents cannot withhold consent for blood transfusion for a child who is bleeding out even if their religion prohibits it. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not permitted to refuse blood transfusion to minors.

So, a second general exception or subsidiary rule is that there are certain procedures that parents cannot have a veto power over. So, for example, parents under the current state of the law, parents do not have a veto power over a minor’s decision to have an abortion. Parents do not even necessarily, in some cases, have to know about the minor’s decision to seek help for sexual transmitted disease, or in some cases, for drug abuse. So, there are certain areas that are considered to be very sensitive where minors can go and seek care, and therefore consent to care on their own without parental involvement of any kind. And as a corollary to that, there are certain procedures and certain areas where parents really cannot act without judicial consent. So, for example, parents cannot consent to sterilization of their minor children without judicial order. And as you can imagine, there could be case where it’s a good idea to sterilize minors if they’re, for example, profoundly mentally challenged, if they are physically handicapped where it would be medically reasonable to sterilize minor. Yet, without sort of some neutral third party evaluating those needs and claims and usually a judge, parents simply can’t consent to those procedures in almost any state.