How is Healthcare Decision-Making Decided in Georgia?
In Georgia, the courts divide decision-making for children into four major categories--education, extracurricular activities, non-emergency healthcare, and religion. Every Georgia Parenting Plan must specify one of the parents as the final decision making in each of these four areas. Absent any major philosophical differences in the medical arena, the primary physician custodian of the children is normally awarded final decision-making for the children. One exception is when the sex of the primary physical custodian differs from the sex of the child, in which event, judges sometimes award the same-sex parent with final decision-making of the minor child. The courts presume that a parent with the same sex as the child would be better equipped to understand healthcare decisions for the child than a parent with a different sex.
