Medical decision making by parents: limited or unlimited?

1. Immunizations should be required for all school-age children unless they pose medical risk for the child. Exemptions should not be allowed on the basis of a parent's religious or philosophical disagreement with immunization.
Agree
Disagree

2. In general, parents should make decisions about health care for their minor children. Medical professionals should intervene:
Only when parents' decisions create conditions that satisfy the legal definition of "child neglect or abuse."
Whenever parents' decisions stand in the way of a health benefit (e.g., a parent does not enforce healthful eating habits or enrolls a child in too many physical training activities).

3. US law allows states to override parents' religious objections and impose standard medical treatment for a child with life-threatening illness if the standard treatment has at least a 50-50 chance of saving the child's life.
This represents a proper balancing of the state's interest in preserving life with parents' right to make health care decisions for their children.
This represents infringement of parents' rights by the state.