Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.

The basic argument I made in the last round, which my opponent didn't directly address, is this: Justice requires that adolescents have the right to make autonomous medical decisions. The reason is because if justice requires that individual autonomy be respected, then to the extent that an individual is capable of acting autonomously they have a right to do so. Adolescents can act autonomously because they are decisionally capable, meaning that they can understand information and make decisions on the basis of information that they learn. CON made some pretty weak rebuttals... they didn't really work, though. The reasons his rebuttals don't really carry a lot of weight are fairly clear. First, being able to understand something complicated like calculus shows that on a certain level adolescents are capable of abstract and complex reasoning, which shows that at least those adolescents who take and succeed in academic classes that involve complicated reasoning skills are decisionally capable and thus can act autonomously. But, talking calculus is certainly not the "end all" of decisional capacity -it's one example of a kind of "marker" that would let us know that a person can acquire new information, critically consider it and make decisions accordingly. Second, rather than actually engage any of the examples I listed, CON just said that they were "beyond the scope." The problem is that they're not. It is absurd that a 16 year old can get pregnant and could be legally required to make medical decisions for her child, because in order for that to happen, the law would have to recognize that the same 16 year old is sufficiently capable of making medical decisions in "for others" but not "for herself." In the same respect, the law recognizes adolescents as adults in some cases but not others -so, again, we've got another contradiction in the status quo. If the basis of PRO's claim is that adolescents are not capable of making decisions like adults in some cases, but capable of making decisions like adults in other cases, that's a conflict that has to be addressed. After all, this whole debate comes down to whether adolescents are "sufficiently capable" of decision making for themselves. Third, CON's claim that adults are "more" capable of making medical than adolescents because adults have a more developed pre-frontal cortex is problematic because it does not mean what he thinks it means. Basically, what CON is saying is that because adults have more developed pre-frontal cortexes, that they and only they should be able to make medical decisions for adolescents. The problem with that argument should be pretty clear: no matter how well developed adults' pre-frontal cortexes are, that doesn't mean that adolescents are not sufficiently mature enough to make those kinds of decisions for themselves. The evidence I have, which CON didn't even bother to address suggests that adolescents *are* sufficiently able to make medical decisions for themselves, and thus able to act autonomously, so justice requires respect for their right to act autonomously. The point to take away from this is that even if adults are "more" mature than adolescents (obvious), that doesn't mean that medical decisions that affect adolescents should be the exclusive province of adults because adolescents are "mature enough" to have a role in that decision making process to the extent that they are able to act autonomously. Even still, CON is fundamentally mistaken about the differences in decision making processes between adults and adolescents. "Studies comparing adolescent and adult decision-making processes have found few, if any, differences in cognitive abilities between adults and adolescents aged 14 and over. (3) Psychologist Tara Kuther concludes on her review of the psychology literature that "many adolescents are as able as adults to conceptualize and reason about treatment alternatives, and, therefore, to make healthcare decisions." (4) CON's emphasis on pre-frontal cortex development, thus, is as misplaced as his tendency to infantilize adolescents by denying their medical autonomy. Fourth, CON attempted to respond to my argument, summarized above, by quoting John Stuart Mill. Mill's point was that the doctrine of liberty does not apply to children. Liberty is "the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views." That is *actually* beyond the scope of this debate, because we're only talking about *autonomy within the context of medical choices* -which is narrower than liberty. Autonomy within the context of medical choices is only the right to decide what, if any, medical care one receives. So, we don't have to give adolescents free reign in society to accept that they can (and probably should) be able to make some decisions for themselves. I don't really know why CON included the Locke quote... because it has nothing whatsoever to do with this debate. That established, I'm really glad that CON agrees that if people can understand facts that are presented to them and they can make decisions on the basis of those facts, they should have a right to make choices for themselves about those facts. I'm especially glad that he went so far as to concede that justice requires this. The reason is because adolescents, who are people just as much as adults are, are decisionally capable and thus their right to make autonomous medical choices should be respected. That is why at the end of the day, even though the pre-frontal cortex may not be completely developed until age 25, CON has a long way to go to prove that the pre-frontal cortex is "not developed enough" from ages 13-17 to preclude decisional capacity. He hasn't done that, and he can't do that, because the scientific literature directly contradicts such a contention. Insofar as I have shown that the opposite is true, and my opponent has conceded that to the extent that people can act autonomously, justice requires that their right to do so be respected, I've won this debate. Vote PRO! Peace and Love, YYW Sources, continued... (As an aside, all CON had to do to verify my source was google it.) (3) Shoshanna Ehrlich, J. "Grounded in the Reality of Their Lives: Listening to Teens Who Make the Abortion Decision Without Involving Their Parents", 18 Berkeley Women"s L.J. 61, 150 (2003); also Shoshanna Ehrlich, Who Decides? The Abortion Rights of Teens (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2006). (From IPPF. Understanding Young People's Right to Decide: Why is it important to develop capacities for autonomous decision making?) (4) Kuther, T.L. "Medical Decision-Making and Minors: Issues of Consent and Assent", 38(150) Adolescence 343 (2003) at 350. (From IPPF. Understanding Young People's Right to Decide: Why is it important to develop capacities for autonomous decision making?)