Informed consent

“ The root premise is the concept, fundamental in American jurisprudence, that ' [e] very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body....' True consent to what happens to one's self is the informed exercise of a choice, and that entails an opportunity to evaluate knowledgeably the options available and the risks attendant upon each. The average patient has little or no understanding of the medical arts, and ordinarily has only his physician to whom he can look for enlightenment with which to reach an intelligent decision. ”

“ How any man can have consented to institutions established in distant ages, it will be difficult to explain. In the most favourite residence of liberty, the consent of individuals is merely passive, a tacit admission in every community of the terms which that community grants and requires. As all are born the subjects of some state of other, we may be said to have been all born consenting to some system of Government. ”

“ This conclusive presumption of the truth of consensual declarations of right is, however, only one of the foundations of the law of agreement. Consent is in many cases truly constitutive of right, instead of merely evidential of it. It is one of the leading principles of justice to guarantee to men the fulfilment of their reasonable expectations. In all matters that are otherwise indifferent, expectation is of predominant influence in the determination of the rule of right, and of all the grounds of rational expectation there is none of such general importance as mutual consent. ”

“ Sir, I have consented to see you, partly that you may learn from my own lips once for all that I admit no man's right to enter my family without my consent, and that consent you will never receive; and partly that, thus knowing each other by sight, each may know the man it becomes him most to avoid. ”

“ No government without the consent of the governed, eh? When has our consent been asked, the consent of twenty-five million people? Are we sheep, that we have let a few thousands govern us for a thousand years, without our consent? ”

“ Nothing also is done without the consent, expressly given, of all parties in being and capable of consent, that have the remotest interest in the matter; unless such consent shall appear to be perversely and without any reason withheld. ”

“ It exists where the party who obtains the consent does so by means of concealing or omitting to state material facts, with intent to deceive, by reason of which omission or concealment the other party was induced to give a consent which he would not otherwise have given. ”

“ The first, therefore, and highest degree of probability, is, when the general consent of all men, in all ages, as far as it can be known, concurs with a man’s constant and never-failing experience in like cases, to confirm the truth of any particular matter of fact attested by fair witnesses : such are all the stated constitutions and properties of bodies, and the regular proceedings of causes and effects in the ordinary course of nature. ”

“ It is consent alone, that makes any human laws binding; and as a learned author observes, a purely voluntary submission to an act, because it is highly in our favor and for our benefit, is in all equity and justice, to be deemed as not at all proceeding from the right we include in the Legislators, that they, thereby obtain an authority over us, and that ever hereafter, we must obey them of duty. ”

“ Improvement of conditions must take place all along the line or not at all. And since unanimous voluntary consent is practically impossible to obtain, and of precarious duration if obtained, the legal enforcement of common standards is necessitated. ”

“ There is, therefore, no alternative but to say, either that the separate, individual consent of every man, who is required to aid, in any way, in supporting the government, is necessary, or that the consent of no one is necessary. ”

“ In order that the marriage may be contracted, the consent of the two parties is necessary, no matter how that consent is obtained. It is very often the parents who have made the choice, being guided by calculation alone. ”

“ By what reasons, then, is the law induced to allow this far-reaching operation to the fact of agreement? Why should the mere consent of the parties be permitted in this manner to stand for a title of right? Are not rights the subject-matter of justice, and is justice a mere matter of convention varying with the wills of men? ”

“ Every man being, as has been shewed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power, but only his own consent; it is to be considered, what shall be understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man’s consent, to make him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern our present case. No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. ”

“ Common consent, again, is an insufficient basis of natural law, few men having searched into the foundations of their assent, even if we could find a more general consent than is the case. And here he expatiates, in the style of Montaigne’s school, on the variety of moral opinions. ”

“ This consent, provided it be free, and fairly obtained, is the best proof that can be produced, that, to the person who gives it, no mischief, at least no immediate mischief, upon the whole, is done. For no man can be so good a judge as the man himself, what it is gives him pleasure or displeasure. ”

“ Consent may be limited in any way by the person granting consent, including limitations in terms of time, place, or property and may be withdrawn at any time.
(4) Voluntariness. To be valid, consent must be given voluntarily. ”

“ But if only one meets with approval, then consent and choice do not differ in reality, but only in our way of looking at them; so that we call it consent, according as we approve of doing that thing; but choice according as we prefer it to those that do not meet with our approval. ”

“ When the marriage is of a minor, without the authority of a license, the person solemnizing is required to satisfy himself that banns have been duly published, and that the consent of parent or guardian has been obtained. ”

“ Now as a law directed against the mass of the nation has not the nature of a reasonable institution, so neither has it the authority: for in all forms of government the people is the true legislator; and whether the immediate and instrumental cause of the law be a single person or many, the remote and efficient cause is the consent of the people, either actual or implied; and such consent is absolutely essential to its validity. ”

“ To conclude, we hold that the Swift "grievous wrong" standard does not apply to requests to modify consent decrees stemming from institutional reform litigation. Under the flexible standard we adopt today, a party seeking modification of a consent decree must establish that a significant change in facts or law warrants revision of the decree and that the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the changed circumstance. ”

“ No matter how deliberately the consent may have been interchanged, and how completely susceptible of proof. No matter although the parties may have lived all their lives as man and wife—may have so published themselves to the world every day, by acts a thousand times more public than any entry in a register can possibly be—by a course of life more clearly indicating deliberate and continued purpose than a single entry in a register can do. ”

“ Still less can these principles be discovered in the common consent of all men who busy themselves with this matter, in the consent which we may take as a practical foundation, as an expression of the universal common sense. ”

“ We, in the name of our past trials - as men who have abandoned none of our convictions - who abjure none of our former opinions - who believe you to be as unchanged as ourselves - we beg of you to consent to represent us. ”

“ By the Constitution, they said, their consent was essential to the validity of the laws enacted by the People, and it would tend the better to facilitate the several matters, which had to be transacted with them, for the representatives of the People to show a regard to them and their interest. ”

“ A father may represent his son in Court [31] and sue and defend in his name, but if he does so without leave from the Court he will be personally answerable for costs, if the suit proves unsuccessful. [32]
3. Consent to marriage of minor children; 3. Consent to marriage of minor children. The consent of parents is necessary to the marriage of minor children, [33] and without it the marriage is null and void. [34] Consent may be either express or implied. It is implied if the father knows that the marriage of the minor is about to take place and does not forbid it. ”

“ Consent must be shown by clear and convincing evidence. The fact that a person was in custody while granting consent is a factor to be considered in determining the voluntariness of the consent, but it does not affect the burden of proof. ”

“ Although such cases are regarded as examples of implied consent, it is more common nowadays to treat them as falling within a general exception embracing all physical contact which is generally acceptable in the ordinary conduct of daily life. ”

“ Respondents urge that modification should be allowed only when a change in facts is both "unforeseen and unforeseeable." Brief for Respondents at 35. Such a standard would provide even less flexibility than the exacting Swift test; we decline to adopt it. Litigants are not required to anticipate every exigency that could conceivably arise during the life of a consent decree. ”

“ We come, then, to the Government's second proposition,-that disclosure of the intercepted communications was 'authorized by the sender' within the meaning of the clause. It is true that one or both of the parties to each of the admitted communications attested in the manner we have indicated to the intercepted conversations. This is said to amount to a consent to the divulgence of the subject matter and to satisfy the statute in that respect. We think the position is untenable. ”

“ For as the remove of the old laws and customs are by the people's consent, which is proved by their frequent petitioning and requests of such a thing: so the enacting of new laws must be by the people's consent and knowledge likewise. ”

“ But nothing hinders the use of one thing preceding the choice of another. And since the acts of the will react on one another, in each act of the will we can find both consent and choice and use; so that we may say that the will consents to choose, and consents to consent, and uses itself in consenting and choosing. ”

“ This presumption of consent by the general owner is entertained by the law from the actual circumstances of the case, and from considerations of the convenience and necessities of the commercial world. ”

“ Should any party withhold his consent or perform any act to impede any person concerned from giving such consent without justifiable grounds, it shall preliminarily be presumed that the fact alleged by the opposite party is veracious. ”

“ Except by consent but they may, with the consent in writing of the Minister, and of the opposite party, take the testimony of the witnesses adduced on either side orally, and in such case need not reduce it to writing. ”

“ It is predicated that government exists by the consent of the governed. While this is nominally true, it virtually contains but an undeveloped germ of truth. In no country as yet does the government exist by the consent of the governed. ”

“ But for causes existing at the time of marriage, where either of the parties is incapable of contracting for want of age or understanding, or from physical causes, or where consent has been obtained through force or fraud, the marriage is void only from the time its nullity shall be declared by a court of competent authority. ”

“ By the same token they cannot conceive how an individual placed on one side of the line may be able to manifest a type of reaction, a form of conduct, which is by common consent considered as being something essentially characteristic of the man on the other side of the line, losing sight of the fact that in the evolution of the human mind Nature is far from drawing such sharp differentiations as are exemplified by legal statutes. ”

“ It is very probable that every community did by common consent afford to each male one or more females, and the presumption is that such choice or assignment, as the case may have been, was respected by common agreement as inviolable. ”

“ Permit me then to enquire, whether the people of any district, county or town, in their local meetings, are competent to judge of this general good? A law, which is, in its operation general, must be founded on the best general information: The people themselves have no right to consent to a law, without this general information: They have no right to consent to a law, on a view of a local interest ”

“ Whether a constant man can be compelled by fear?
(3) Whether compulsory consent invalidates marriage?
(4) Whether compulsory consent makes a marriage as regards the party using compulsion?
(5) Whether conditional consent makes a marriage?
(6) Whether one can be compelled by one's father to marry?
Art. 1 - Whether a compulsory consent is possible? Objection 1: It would seem that no consent can be compulsory. For, as stated above (Sent. ii, D, 25 [* [4944] FS, Q [6] , A [4] ] ) the free-will cannot be compelled. Now consent is an act of the free-will. ”

“ He cannot conceive how, looking to the incurable diversity of human opinion on all matters short of demonstration, the legislature could expect the perpetual consent of a body of ten thousand men, not to one controverted proposition, but to many hundreds. ”

“ I accept that consent cannot be said simply to be a defence to any act which one person does to another. A line has to be drawn as to what can and as to what cannot be the subject of consent. In this regard it is relevant to recall what was said by Stephen J in R v Coney (1882) 8 QBD 534 at 549. Even though he was referring to the position at common law, his words seem to me to be of relevance to a consideration of the statute in question. ”