The age of consent for minors to access particular medical procedures is being lowered from 16 to 14.
The discussion over this bill started in parliament started being debated and discussed in parliament last Wednesday. The bill will aim to amend the Health Act.
As of present day, the law allowed minors aged 16 or over the right to consent to or refuse to partake in a medical procedure only if a medical practitioner thought the minor had sufficient maturity and understanding of the situation in hand.
If the minor refused the procedure but the medical practitioner thought the treatment was urgently required, the refusal could be denied in order to go along with the treatment.
The new law aiming to be passed by parliament, will lower the age of consent to 14 and extends the phrase treatments to include “psychiatric treatment, counselling, therapy, social work and youth work.”
The bill was brought forward by Social Welfare Minister Michael Falzon and was supported by Nationalist MP Graziella Attard Previ, who both described the potential law as the ’empowerment’ of children.