Childhood Medical Choices

I would like to affirm the resolution which states Resolved: Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices. For simplicity in the debate today, I would like to give the following definitions from Oxford’s Advanced Learner’s dictionary: Adolescence is the process of developing from a child into an adult and the word ought is used to indicate a desirable or expected state. Blue Cross Blue Shield states that a medical necessity means: health care services that a physician, exercising prudent clinical judgement, would provide to a patient for the purpose of preventing, evaluating, diagnosing or treating an illness, injury or disease or its symptoms, and that are ; in accordance with generally accepted medical practice, …show more content…
Adolescents are engaging in more "adult' behaviors than many of the health care professionals caring for them would have believed possible during their own adolescent years. The courts and legislatures of this country have not been unmindful of these societal changes, and there is a definite trend toward allowing adolescents more freedom to make decisions, and to exercise autonomy and self-determination in their relationships with healthcare providers and with others in the social system.” I affirm today’s debate because I agree with Professor Holder. An adolescent needing medical treatment will be the only person to truly know their own body and its needs. The competency of the decision-maker is an important factor in today’s debate. Therefore, if the affirmative proves that an adolescent is competent enough to make a well-judged medical decision for themselves, the affirmative will win today’s …show more content…
Dr. Robert Wells and Dr. Steve Stephenson state that “It is neither developmentally appropriate nor practical to force a teenager to accept prolonged and invasive [medical] treatment against his or her will”. It it wrong to make a child go against their personal beliefs by deciding for them. The famous British philosopher, John Locke, understood that every human is naturally born with the rights of life, liberty, and property. John Locke is not saying that freedom is given to humans at a certain age or maturity level, but that all people are entitled to these rights at birth. Adolescents need to be able to express their opinions and know that they will matter. Take the example of a deaf child born to parents that can hear. In the deaf culture, many find cochlear implants controversial. A deaf adolescent may not want to have a cochlear implant because they don’t want to be labeled as “hard of hearing” or they believe that sign language is beautiful. Although cochlear implants are not necessary, the adolescent’s parent may force their child to get one. This is obviously very wrong because this teaches the adolescent that their beliefs do not matter. As Dr. Joseph Valente, professor at Pennsylvania State University, states: “deaf communities are agreed on one thing: the large scale implantation of deaf children is seen as a terrifying threat to the future of