MEDICAL DECISION-MAKING FOR AND BY CHILDREN - TENSIONS BETWEEN PARENT, STATE, AND CHILD

The conflict between parental desire to maintain control over the upbringing of their children and the government's interest in ensuring that various aspects of children's lives are not subject to unfettered discretion and parental whim arises frequently within the context of education, religion, or any other of a broad host of social issues. This conflict is seldom more dramatically presented, however, than in situations where parents wish to withhold, for whatever reason, potentially life-saving medical procedures from their children. In this article, originally presented as a David C. Baum Memorial Lecture at the University of Illinois College of Law, Professor Walter Wadlington surveys the history of ever-increasing legislative and judicial intervention in parental choice of their child's medical treatment. He further assesses the complex constitutional issues with which courts are presented when parental justification for declining life-saving treatment stems from the tenets of the parents' religion. Professor Wadlington concludes that the current societal debate over the proper scope of ''children's rights'' in many respects mirrors the often contradictory responses of legislatures and courts to parental refusal of medical treatment for their children. The conflict between parental autonomy and governmental protection of children does not promise to be easily resolved.