Mature Minor Doctrine – think of the children
I was young once and despite my bluster here, I was not all that rebellious against my parents. Either that or the could see me coming a mile away and defused the situation. In terms of serious issues I could have done any of the following.
Color my hair
get a mohawk haircut
get some piercings
get a small tattoo
get a large obvious tattoo
run away and join the circus
Now, a few years later, I can only imagine that these are still options but there are a few very polarizing issues in the United States at the moment. What political party do you support and do you believe in getting a Covid 19 vaccination.
I cannot imagine all that many 14 or 15 year olds who start dressing up like either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or having a demonstration in the living-room but what about the vaccine? If your parents are against it you can really rile them up by getting it.
Normally, it is your parents that bring you to the doctor and get those kinds of things done. Yet, kids these days are pretty tech savvy, and there is a lot of information available on the internet. Actually some of this information is describing this “Mature Minor Doctrine” which has been online since 2008. This Tennessee law was passed in 1987 when kids were less rebellious and it allowed minors to get vaccinated above the age of 14 without their parents consent.
All of this might interesting but not especially relevant for those who do not live in Tennessee. Well, except that the Tennessee health department has backed down from their efforts to get minors vaccinated. These efforts were in the form of Facebook and Twitter posts. They have gone as far as to delete these posts and to fire the medical director, Mischelle Fiscus, for vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization programs.
I guess it may have had something to do with the Tennessee state senator Janice Bowling who urged the head of the health department, Lisa Piercey, to “take action” and to “remove the fear, the concerns and the anger that has gone across the state as a result of (Fiscus) letter”.
“It is very disconcerting to see the letter, or memo, from Dr. Fiscus stating that Tennessee law allows the Department of Health to give vaccinations to children 14 years of age,” “Tennessee law does not allow that” Janice Bowling
I guess the senator who is not as familiar with the Tennessee state statutes is concerned about the flood of rebellious youths who have or are planning to get the vaccine. Thjs is obvious by the massive number of teens, which as of June 2021 could be measured to 8000 eight individuals which included the three children of Lisa Piercey.
I guess now that we have managed to protect the hords of rebellious youths wanting to get a vaccination in the middle of a Pandemic the Tennessee department of health can focus on other pressing issues such as enforcing the prohibition of teaching anything that is related to “non-abstinent-behavior” and collection those 500 dollar fines.
Fines for teaching anything non-abstinent as protection
https://siecus.org/state_profile/tennessee-state-profile/
More on this topic is available from “The Tennessean”
https://eu.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/12/tennessee-fires-top-vaccine-official-covid-19-shows-new-spread/7928699002/
