Legal Dimensions of Adolescent Sexuality

Abstract

The ethical and legal obligations with respect to treating a minor can be confusing, particularly in the areas of consent to treatment, confidentiality, and parental involvement. The clinician must be aware of the appropriate course of practice when the patient is an adolescent seeking care for contraception, pregnancy, or sexually transmitted infections. This article examines a number of ethical and legal issues that arise when providing reproductive and sexual health care to an adolescent and offers recommendations for the physician’s most appropriate courses of action regarding adolescent patients and the age of consent to sexual activity, reporting of child abuse, provision of reproductive and sexual health care to a minor, assessing an adolescent’s capacity to consent to treatment, the physician’s duty of confidentiality, and the exceptions to the rule of confidentiality.

Keywords: ethical and legal obligations, treating a minor, consent to treatment, confidentiality, parental involvement, adolescent, reproductive and sexual health care, confidentiality, child abuse, capacity to consent

JEL Classification: K39