Minors Access to STD Services: State Polices in Brief, Guttmacher Institute
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- Resource Type
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Charts, Memos and Other Resources
- Description
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The Guttmacher Institute authored this state-by-state reference sheet regarding a minors authority to consent to STD services, HIV testing and treatment and confidentiality protections afforded to the minor. According to the report, all fifty states and the District of Colombia allow, with some minimum age exceptions, minors to consent to testing and treatment for STDs. Thirty-one states explicitly include testing and treatment for HIV and eighteen states allow but do not require physicians to inform parents that their minor child is seeking or receiving STD/HIV services. One state requires parental notification in the case of a positive HIV test. This reference sheet is quick and handy but it does not necessarily contain the legal nuances of this tough legal question. For example, looking at the sheet, one might think that in New Jersey a person must be thirteen years old to consent to an HIV test, but the reality is more complicated. According to the New Jersey statute, N.J.S.A. 9:17A-4, a minor may consent to an HIV test when the minor is or believes that he may be afflicted with a venereal disease, or who is at least 13 years of age and is or believes that he may be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus or have acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or by a minor who, in the judgment of a treating physician, appears to have been sexually assaulted . . . . Thus, the reference sheet is a good starting point, but people who need more specific answers should refer to the individual state statutes themselves.
- File
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Click here to download this document [ 363.86 kB ]
- Published
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2007-June-01
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