Ethical+Issues+and+Legal+Considerations

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Ethical Issues and Legal Considerations
=== When facing an ethical dilemma, counselors are expected to uphold both ethical and legal principles. Below you will find considerations relevant to the current case from the [|American Counseling Association] Code of Ethics, GA Legal Codes, and a video that will summarize how the codes relate to the case of Norma. ===

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Ethical Issues

**ACA [|Code of Ethics]**


 * A.1.a- Primary Responsibility**
 * "The primary responsibility of counselors is to respect the dignity and promote the welfare of clients."


 * A.4.a- Avoiding Harm**
 * " Counselors act to avoid harming their clients, trainees, and research participants and to minimize or to remedy unavoidable or unanticipated harm."


 * B.1.c- Respect for Confidentiality**
 * "Counselors do not share confidential information without client consent or without sound legal or ethical justification."


 * B.2.b- Contagious, Life-Threatening Diseases**
 * " When clients disclose that hey have a disease commonly known to be both communicable and life threatening, counselors may be justified in disclosing information to identifiable third parties, if they are known to be at demonstrable and high risk of contracting the disease. Prior to making the disclosure, counselors confirm that there is such a diagnosis and assess the intent of clients to inform the third parties about their disease or to engage in any behaviors that may be harmful to an identifiable third party."


 * B.2.d- Minimal Disclosure**
 * "To the extent possible, clients are informed before confidential or privileged information is disclosed and are involved in the disclosure decision-making process. When circumstances require the disclosure of confidential information, only essential information is revealed."


 * H.1.b- Conflict in Codes and Laws**
 * "If ethical responsibilities conflict with the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, counselors make known their commitment to the ACA Code of Ethics and take steps to resolve the conflict. If the conflict cannot be resolved by such means, counselors may adhere to the requirements of law, regulations, or other governing legal authority."

Legal Considerations

[|Georgia Law] When considering the legal obligations in address this case with Norma, Georgia Codes 24-9-47 and 16-5-50 are particularly relevant. Below, important sections of these Codes are highlighted, and the full Codes may be found by clicking on the links. [|Georgia Code 24-9-47]
 * (1) No person or legal entity which receives AIDS confidential information shall:
 * (A) Intentionally or knowingly disclose that information to another person or legal entity
 * (d) AIDS confidential information may disclosed to any person or legal entity designated to receive that information when that designation is made in writing by the person identified by that information, or if that person is a minor or incompetent person, by that person's parent or guardian
 * (g) When the patient of a physician has been determined to be infected with HIV and that patient's physician reasonably believes that the spouse or sexual partner of any child of the patient, spouse, or sexual partner is a person at risk of being infected with HIV by that patient, the physician may disclose to that spouse, sexual partner, or child that the patient has been determined to be infected with HIV, after first attempting to notify the patient that such a disclosure is going to be made.
 * (c) A person who is an HIV infected person who, after obtaining knowledge of being infected with HIV:
 * (1) Knowingly engages in sexual intercourse or performs or submits to any sexual act involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another person and the HIV infected person does not disclose to the other person the fact of that infected person's being an HIV infected person prior to that intercourse or sexual act; is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imporisonment of rnot more than ten years.

Duty to Warn

Duty to protect and duty to warn legal standards vary from state-to-state. The map below indicates whether a state has mandatory statutes, permissible statutes, or no statutes. You may visit the website which gives greater detail about each state's requirements by clicking on the picture below. This article published by the Georgia Psychological Association highlights specific standards of Duty to Warn and Protect for the state of Georgia. It highlights relevant court proceedings and literature on the topic. [|Georgia Duty to Warn]