Kids' health care spurring debate

More than a year after the Parker Jensen controversy, Utah lawmakers are continuing to struggle with determining at what age and under what circumstances a minor can direct his own medical care.

Members of the Legislature's Child Welfare Oversight Committee agreed Thursday to tackle the issue in hopes of drafting a bill that will meet the concerns prompted by Gov. Olene Walker's veto of last year's HB140.

In that measure, sponsored by Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Sandy, a "mature-minor" provision required the courts to determine the maturity of a juvenile who wants control of health-care decisions. By making such a designation, parents could not be found guilty of medical neglect.

Although it passed the Legislature, Walker nixed the bill, citing concerns that it could lead minors to choose abortion or contraceptives over parents' objections.

Christensen told the committee he didn't believe the bill was that far-reaching and that the concerns were largely an over-analyzed knee-jerk reaction.

"There is no way on earth this would trump our abortion laws," he said.

But Robin Arnold-Williams, executive director of the state Department of Human Services, said the mature-minor provision came with too many unknowns.

The bill, she said, failed to define at what age a child could be deemed a mature minor, failed to determine what type of health care could be accessed and didn't define whether the designation would be a one-time determination for a specific problem or a permanent classification.

Aside from those concerns, the mature-minor designation also leaves open the question of who picks up the bill if a minor is seeking treatment for substance abuse or mental illness, in opposition to parents' wishes, she said.

But Christensen said it is easy to "run wild" with the implications of a court-ordered mature-minor designation when the issue is not that complicated.

"If Parker Jensen had been 17 years, 11 months and 29 days old, would it have mattered?" he said.

Jensen, then 12, was the spark in a parental-rights controversy in 2003 when he was diagnosed with cancer that medical professionals said called for chemotherapy.

After his parents refused treatment, desiring alternative approaches and second opinions, the state intervened by seeking custody, touching off a debate over the fragile balance between parental rights and the state's right to act in a child's best interest.

In the end, the state backed off and Parker, according to his parents, remains healthy to this day, without state-ordered medical treatment.

"He is as healthy as could be," Christensen said, describing the agency reaction as a "huge gang tackle" that forced a good family into an unfair and expensive fight.