I believe that this is the same way that most adults see death as well. When children learn ,ore and more about their particular illness, they become more sophisticated. For example, children learn the names of various treatments, drugs, changes in body, etc. Another aspect of adolescent competence and right to choose and have their prognosis revealed to them comes from our interpretation of the American Medical Association's Principles of Medical Ethics. I think that this all relates to my original statement that adolescents understand because they have advanced cognitive thinking capabilities.
Patients have a right to know the truth.
The main point that we attempted to make in the rebuttal was that we were not arguing for a withholding of prognosis on a wide scale term, but rather to point out that there were circumstances than made the nondisclosure relevant and practical. Also we argued against an example that they gave of a 17 year old boy who had always known of his terminal condition and felt better because that he had known and was able to deal with it. Once they know everything there is no way of taking back that knowledge it is something that they will always know and be thinking about on some level every day until they pass away. The main point that we wanted to argue against was that we were not advocating for removing hope from the patient. We feel that hope is very important as does the other side in the well-being of a patient, we in no way meant to come across as being desensitized towards the patients feeling.