Child Consent

Hana: I was curious to see if the United States upheld its standard of letting people decide what happens to their body when it came to medical decisions. According to the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics in their article "Learning to Decide: Involving Children in their Health Care Decisions" they suggest talking with the child. The decision making process usually only involves the doctor and the parents, but now they suggest talking with the pediatric patient as well. The AMA suggests always giving the child full information about the progress of the disease, treatment, and test results. Depending on the age of the child depends on the level of involvement they can get, for example if the child is very young the child should get to decide small things, like where the shot goes. To older, the child's opinion should be considered but is not the final decision. I do not know how long this has been the opinion, but this article is from ten years ago (2003), which makes me believe it is fairly recent. However, having child consent or informing a child is still a trend, opinion, idea, or option circulating the American medical field, which is not present in the practice FGM. This can be seen through one of the first videos where the woman said that if she had known why she was circumcised she would not have done it, or let her daughters get it done. 
Being able to make your own choices is a key theme. But what if someone chooses to go through FGM  because it is part of their culture? 
http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2003/08/pfor3-0308.html