New regulations, same problems: the informed consent of children and teenagers in Chile after the reform of law N°20.584

Abstract

This paper describes the legislative innovations that the Mental Health Law, Law N°21.331, incorporates into health legislation regarding children and adolescents, putting them in relation to international human rights standards. Then, it focuses on how the existing interpretative problems in the original text of Law N°20.584 regarding the informed consent for procedures and health treatments of these population are left unresolved by the reform. On the contrary, the new legal provisions introduce new interpretive problems that make the informed consent of children and adolescents remain on uncertain legal grounds.