Across the United States, parents are increasingly refusing to vaccinate their children against harmful childhood diseases. Many of these parents utilize expansive exemptions to school-immunization laws to keep their children unvaccinated. Even as their children become teenagers and develop their own informed opinions about vaccines, most state and local laws provide these minors with no avenue to override their parents’ objections and choose vaccination for themselves. However, this legal landscape may be changing, as creative laws like the District of Columbia’s Minor Consent for Vaccination Amendments Act of 2020 (MCA) have emerged that do allow certain minors to consent to recommended vaccines without parent permission, provided that they can meet an informed-consent standard.

This Comment argues that minors possess a qualified autonomy right to consent to recommended vaccines. It outlines the legal background of this autonomy right by discussing the history of vaccination laws, parental rights, and children’s rights in the United States. It also demonstrates how vaccine-resistant parents could attempt to challenge the exercise of this autonomy right by invoking the protections of highly restrictive religious-freedom laws like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Then, this Comment outlines the contours of the autonomy right itself. Finally, this Comment proposes a statutory solution, based in part on the District of Columbia’s MCA, that can vindicate this autonomy right while appropriately including parents in the consent process.

在美国，父母越来越多地拒绝为孩子接种有害的儿童疾病疫苗。这些父母中的许多人利用学校免疫法的广泛豁免来让他们的孩子不接种疫苗。即使在他们的孩子成为青少年并对疫苗形成自己的知情意见时，大多数州和地方法律都没有为这些未成年人提供任何途径来推翻父母的反对并为自己选择疫苗接种。然而，这种法律格局可能正在发生变化，因为像哥伦比亚特区的 2020 年疫苗接种未成年人同意修正案 (MCA) 这样的创造性法律已经出现，允许某些未成年人在没有父母许可的情况下同意推荐的疫苗，前提是他们能够满足知情同意标准。

该评论认为，未成年人拥有同意推荐疫苗的合格自主权。它通过讨论美国疫苗接种法、父母权利和儿童权利的历史，概述了这种自主权的法律背景。它还展示了对疫苗有抵抗力的父母如何试图通过援引《宗教自由恢复法》等高度限制性的宗教自由法律的保护来挑战这种自主权的行使。然后，本评论概述了自治权本身的轮廓。最后，本评论提出了一个法定解决方案，部分基于哥伦比亚特区的 MCA，可以维护这种自主权，同时适当地将父母纳入同意过程。