The idea of “the child” is constantly evolving, and children appear to be maturing more rapidly each year. As a response, laws pertaining to minors have had to keep up with these social changes. In the health care context, the competency of children is constantly scrutinized and challenged. Accordingly, reforms to past laws that deemed minors lacked decisional capacity have resulted in the “mature minor” doctrine. Although this doctrine allows minors a degree of independence in the decision-making process it maintains many grey areas. The age of consent is inconsistent across provinces and territories, and the guidelines used to assess competence are vague and sometimes arbitrary. With such inconsistency in the measuring of adolescent competence, it brings me to question the competence granted freely to adults. To rightfully judge competence there must be a prototype, something that I and others can form a explicit definition around. With what I have collected, since individuals gain decision-making autonomy when they reach the age of consent, than the defining characteristic of comp...
In the day and age where online dating and meeting is becoming more common, it’s easy to alter how you are perceived. You can disclose details about yourself you believe are attractive and withhold/hide information about yourself you believe other people would reject you for. The Lenient Thesis provides that it is only a minor wrong to deceive another person into sex by misleading them about certain personal features such as natural hair color, occupation, or romantic intentions. This thesis does exclude run-of-the-mill deception like someone’s sexual history, t.v show preferences, or how funny one finds the other. In “Sex, Lies, and Consent”, Tom Dougherty seeks to argue against the lenient thesis, and instead that deceiving another person
In America, the legal age to sign off on any medical consent is 18 years of age. Seventeen year olds should be able to compose their own medical decisions, and sign off on their own medical consents. Power should land in their hands, accompanied by the professional advice of a doctor. It is your body, be compelled to fabricate a decision without having to have your parent’s signature.
How can a child make the decision for the life of another child by themselves? In this paper I will outline the mental, physical, and safety issues of minors (age 18 and under) having an abortion and why it is so important that they need to get parental consent before making this life long decision.
The Legal Status of Sixteen and Seventeen Year Old Youth in Ontario. Toronto, Ont.: Canadian Foundation for Children Youth and the Law (Justice for Children & Youth), 1993. Print.
Recent developments in standard of care and professional relationship with patients have made law fundamental to the study and practice of nursing. At every stage of patients care, law helps bring up to date nursing practice and it is essential that nurses understand the legal and ethical implications of law in their nursing profession (Griffith and Tengrah, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to discuss the concept of consent in relation to the role of the nurse. This will aim at demonstrate ethical and legal implication of consent on nursing practice and professional working. In the Code (2008, cited in Griffith and Tengrah, 2011) the Nursing and Midwifery Council set standards for nursing professional to follow. Among the rules is the requirement of nurses to obtain consent before care is given.
Juveniles can be transferred to the adult court through the judicial waiver on a case-by-case basis. The decision is usually made at the prosecution ‘s request and follows by a transfer hearing. The other popular transfer mechanisms dating from the 1970s are the automatic transfer and prosecutorial discretion. For automatic transfer, juveniles who are accused of serious crimes are inevitably moved up to adult court. For prosecutorial discretion, prosecutors make the decision to file charges in adult court. There is no doubt that juveniles should be punished for their actions, but the punishment should take into consideration that young adults are capable to change such as community-based rehabilitation programs. In addition, the mind of the
It is ironic that how some children are able to present themselves more mature than adults. The youth of the generation is becoming more mature and are developing adult skills faster than ever. People are beginning to wonder about the age of adulthood and how it should be determined. This controversy beleaguers around privileges such as drinking, driving, and voting. According to the article What is the Age of Responsibility by Alan Greenblatt, society determines that a person is an adult through customary rites, legal rights, and one’s responsibilities. However, I believe that the best way to adulthood is shown through one’s obligation for their priorities and work.
The focus of the juvenile justice system is to rehabilitate juvenile offenders, rather than to imprison and punish like the systems adult counterpart. According to Caldwell (1961) the juvenile justice system is based on the principle that youth are developmentally and fundamentally different from adults. This has lead to the development of a separate justice system for juveniles that was initially designed to assist troubled juveniles providing them with protection, treatment, and guidance. When performing as it is designed and up to the initial intentions, the juvenile court balances rehabilitation (treatment) of the offender with suitable sanctions when necessary such as incarceration. According to Mack (1909) the focus of the juvenile justice system has shifted from “how can we help the child”, “why did the child commit the crime” to “was the crime committed”. According to Griffin (2008) in some cases juveniles may be required to be “transferred” to adult court. The prerequisites for transfer to adult court are the duty to protect the public from violent youths, serious crime, and the lack of rehabilitation chance from the juvenile court. According to Flesch (2004) many jurisdictions handle the issue of serious juvenile crime by charging juveniles as adults. Charging a juvenile as an adult is done by a method which is called waiver to adult court. This waiver allows adult criminal court to have the power to exercise jurisdiction over juveniles and handle the juvenile’s case as an adult’s case would be tried. According to Flesch (2004) a juvenile is both tried and if convicted of the crime the juvenile will be sentenced as an adult when his or her case is waived from the juvenile court. Waiver to adult court initially was viewe...
Age of consent is the age that you're allowed to have sexual activities. According to The Sexual Offence Act 2003, a person commit an offence if he touches sexually a girl under 16. Recently the Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, had called for a lowering of the age of consent to make it easier for teenagers before age 16 years to seek sexual health service such as contraception from the NHS. While Downing Street reject the reduction in the age of consent. A spokesman said the current age is in place protect children and there are no plans to change it (Watt, 19). There is a public concern that lowering age of consent may guide juveniles’ attitudes towards sex negatively; it may encourage the premature sexual activities; and it may be furtherance of teenage pregnancy or even sexual crime. The concern is not groundless, and a valid social research evidence is needed for the debating and to proof or dispel doubts. The principal objective of this research is to find young people’s views of age of consent law with its changing.
In the American culture today, women are becoming more sexualized at a younger age due to the influences of the corporate media. Corporate media and society form the perfect idealistic body that women should have and is constantly being promoted making younger girls start to compare themselves to them at a young age. Certain shows and movies, such as Disney, influence young children and teenagers through their characters as to how a woman is supposed to be accepted. The way the corporate media and society make this body image they want women to have starts in a very early stage in a woman's life without them knowing. There are these childhood movies, such as Disney, Barbie and Ken dolls, programs such as Netflix, teen magazines, and the most common source of them all, the internet.
In the event that the charges are demonstrated and a wrongdoing assurance is made, the adolescent guilty party goes under the courts expansive forces. By then, the adolescent court has the specialist to do what it considers to be to the greatest advantage of the adolescent. Regularly, the adolescent court holds lawful expert over the minor for a set timeframe until the adolescent turns into a grown-up, or now and again considerably more.Each state has uncommon courts as a rule called adolescent courts to manage minors who have been blamed for disregarding a criminal statute. The procedures are considerate instead of criminal. Along these lines, rather than being formally accused of a
After many years of prosecuting statutory rape laws, some people are being to question whether or not these laws when concerning non-violent “sex with a minor” are actually appropriate and effective in protecting the rights of minors. The people who support statutory rape laws would argue that in any relationship where one legal aged partner is significantly older than the other, the older of the two has a greater power advantage over the younger. Thus even if a person under the age of consent agrees to sexual activity, it is still considered lawfully to be rape, because that person is not mature enough to make a well thought-out decision. Adults fear that the younger person in the relationship may be unconsciously forced emotionally, if not physically, into engaging in sexual acts with their partner. According to the Taking Sides (Issue 17), “Statutory rape laws are designed, in part, to keep these types of unequal relationships from becoming human nature.”
Believe it or not, one in three women have experienced being raped at a party while being intoxicated or unconscious. Because of the recent events involving sexual assault all over the world, many conversations and controversies have come to light, showing a disturbing lack of clarity about the topic of consent. Sexual assault is when someone is coerced into a sexual act or forced. Consent is when someone basically gives you permission or they agree to do something with you, in this case they agree to have sexual intercourse with you. But, if someone were to give you consent while they are intoxicated then that is actually not consent. With so many people not knowing what consent is or how to clarify it, a group of young people, ages 18 and
Advocates of this issue believe that minors should have the right to be in charge of their medical decisions. Dr. Eric Kodish believes that decisions made by teenagers on the older side who are able to make a righteous decision should be carried out. “I think the ethics of modern American life suggest that if people have the capacity to make a decision, they should be free to refuse treatment” (Shute 1). Advocates of minors being able to make their own medical decisions believe that if the minor shows enough maturity understanding of their desired action, then it should be respected and carried out. Dr. Eric Kodish uses what he calls “The Rule of 7s” to determine when a child should be allowed to make the decision.
Many issues have come up with the laws surrounding statutory rape. Although the laws are in place to help people, many people see them as unfair and they believe that there are changes that could be made to help improve these laws. A major problem with statutory rape laws is that each state has a different law. To help improve statutory rape laws, all states should work together to have a set of country-wide laws, so that the states all have the same laws. With a few minor improvements, the statutory rape laws would be problem free.