Can Minors Consent to Vaccines in Michigan?
By: Sarah Radtke, D.C.
Decisions around healthcare are some of the most complex and consequential that we face. This complexity is the reason that minors are not generally allowed to give consent without a parent or guardian. Reviewing research regarding any given medical intervention, personal and family history, and likelihood of side effects are challenges we do not expect minors to handle. Yet, in recent years, a variety of states have sought to separate children from their parent when it comes to medical choices.
Minor consent bills are on the rise around the country. I was not aware that a minor consent bill had passed in Michigan when I heard a very disturbing story. A patient had taken her 12 year old daughter for a check up at their Bloomfield Hills pediatrician. She declined vaccination for her daughter at that visit. The mother was asked to leave the room. Her daughter was then pressured by the pediatrician to consent to the vaccines that her mother had just refused. Both mother and daughter left that office deeply disturbed and in tears.
Is this a fluke? I wish it was, but fear it is not. Many parents no longer have access to their 12 year old child’s medical records. Another patient tried to pick up an x-ray report from a local hospital and was told that her child, who was in school at the time, would have to come in person to claim the x-ray themselves.
From where does this change in policy derive its authority? In Michigan, minors can consent to receive medical care for birth control, prenatal and pregnancy services, and mental health care. Since many medical institutions cannot separate health data that is involved in these specific categories, they broadly protect all data from parents. The State of Michigan says that parental consent is “generally required” for vaccination with exceptions for “Title X Agencies” and “Prenatal and Pregnancy-Related Health Care.”
In 2022, Michigan voted to adopt Proposal 3, which reads in part,
“Article 1, Section 28 Right to Reproductive Freedom
- Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. “
Every step that removes a parent from a child’s healthcare decisions paves the way for the next. This measure created a new right for “individuals” that includes but is not limited to the listed matters. Did we wander into a quagmire of blurry lines, confusing definitions and the ultimate erosion of parental rights? If parental consent for vaccination is only “generally required” and evoking any of the matters included but not limited to the newly established right to reproductive freedom will nullify parental consent requirements, then we are in for many more children facing doctors alone for any reason at all. A medical power of attorney filed with every medical institution and revokable only by the parent may be a solution for the time being.