Should Adolescents Make Their Own Medical Decisions?

Adolescents should not have the right to make their own medical decisions, this would be very unsafe for the patient and possibly for the people around them, also adolescents are not mature enough to take on the responsibility in the decision making and the decision the adolescent might make might not be the best choice.
Giving the adolescent decision making privileges on his/her medical choice could be very dangerous, not just to the adolescent but to the people around him/her. He/She could very easily make the wrong decision and then be stuck with it for the rest of their life, causing him/her and their families pain and suffering. The adolescent could make a decision and not know all the facts causing themselves more issues than before. Therefor the parent/guardian should make the decisions. …show more content…
The main reason is that they would not have all the knowledge in making the decision, unlike the parent would. For example if a child under the age of 5 was to make the decision of having to do surgery or some other kind of treatment the outcome could result in death, unlike maturer individuals over the age of 18. Most adolescents do not have the wisdom it requires to make your own medical decisions. "Parents have the responsibility and authority to make medical decisions on behalf of their children." https://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/parent.html. With that being said I believe that the parent/ guardian should be doing the decision