Critical thinking

Topic School Affiliation Should a 10-year-old child be allowed to refuse life-saving care? A critical analysis Largely, it is true that a child might not be competent to make informed choices implying that he or she cannot make a decision concerning his or her health. However, it will be fair if one qualifies this assumption. It is without doubt that an infant cannot not make decisions, let alone giving consent or providing any clear statements about their choices. However, a young adult or a teenager has some ability to make judgments concerning what should happen to them (Ashcroft, 2007). In addition, they have the capacity to give consent.
The argument that the ability of a child to make decisions is based on age may be falsified, as it is possible that some adults too cannot make informed decisions. The legal recognition of maturity is not age but the ability to make decisions (CNO, 2009). This means that one cannot measure the maturity of an individual based on age but should do so on a person’s capacity to make decisions and give consent. One may also view children as being vulnerable to the influences of the people around them (Ashcroft, 2007). This should not be the reason to deny them the chance to make decisions about their lives because to some degree everyone, including adults, is prone to influence from those close to us. Children are also likely to misinterpret information about a disease. If the inadequate provision of information is a deliberate act of a medical personnel, one cannot blame it on a child.
Word count: 250
References
Ashcroft, R. E. (2007). Principles of health care ethics. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.
CNO. (2009). Consent. Toronto, Ontario. Retrieved from: http://cno. org/Global/docs/policy/41020_consent. pdf