Project No. 77(I)

Commenced: 1981
Withdrawn: 1998

The Commission prepared a discussion paper on the subject in 1988. The discussion paper provisionally suggested a statutory scheme that would allow mature children to authorise their own medical treatment, and give doctors immunity if they treated such children in good faith. Among particular cases of treatment considered by the Commission were contraception and sterilisation. The paper also dealt with other important issues, such as the special problems of handicapped, seriously and terminally ill children. Following the response to this paper, the Commission engaged Ms Mala Dharmananda to produce a research report on the subject of informed consent to medical treatment with the aid of a grant from the Law Society of Western Australia Public Purposes Trust and with the assistance of the Western Australian Council of Social Service. The research report was released in December 1992.