Currently, in all American states, sexually active teens can access contraceptives even if they do not talk about sex and pregnancy with their parents and even without the consent of the parents. Contraceptives are the devices or drugs that are used to prevent a person from getting a pregnancy that is not planned for. Some contraceptives like condoms even avoid the transmission of STDs and HIV. However, some federal and state lawmakers wish to take away the ability by teenagers to protect themselves and other involved parties like their parents, partners and babies (Eichner & Maxine 87). They would like to deny birth control services to sexually active teenagers unless they inform their guardians and receive their consent. This essay examines why teenagers should access contraceptives even without informing their parents first and getting their approval.
Proposals like these would thoroughly change a public health policy that is long-standing, and consequently, put the lives and health of millions of teenagers at risk. Because of these reasons, leading medical organizations do not agree with the laws that are opposing legislation that necessitates teenagers to engage their parents before they access contraception. Laws like these would endanger teens and violate their human rights (Emanuel & Steven 23).
If required to obtain parental consent during the access to contraception, many minors would be affected. For example, a teen at a pharmacy to buy condoms would be forced to go back to ask for their parents’ permission first. A teenage girl needing to get emergency contraception because of an unanticipated or forced intercourse would first need to get approval from her parents even if she needed it in 72 hours. Lastly, a teenage girl at a family planning clinic for Depo-Provera, diaphragm or birth control pills would be forced first to get permission (Guldi & Melanie 43).
Denying teenagers from getting contraceptives without their parents' consent does not make them less sexually active. If anything, it just makes the situation more dangerous and risky. Many people think that letting kids obtain contraception before first informing their parents will encourage them to get sexually active. Critics say that when a teenager is required to have the consent of their parent of getting the birth control, he/ she will get discouraged to engage in sexual activities. Research about teenage behavior, however, disagrees with this theory completely (Eichner 78). This is because the reason teenagers become sexually active is not necessarily because they have the ability to consult a family planning provider for contraceptives confidentially. In fact, research shows on average, many teenage girls in the United States are usually sexually active for the last 22 months even before they first consult the family planning provider (McKinney & Emily 23). Studies reveal that availing contraceptives to young people does not affect the rate of sexual activity. Students that attend schools with available condoms without parental consent requirements are less sexually active than those at schools that refuse to give students condoms confidentially. Additionally, in schools that condoms are readily availed to students, the sexually active teenagers are twice as likely as those from the other schools to use a condom and stay safe (Guldi 822).
The study, therefore, proves that requiring parental consent before access to services of contraceptives does not lessen teenagers’ sexual activity. Instead, the teenagers are instead put at health risks, and their lives get threatened (Miller & Geoffrey 65). For instance, a study that was recently done found in the New England Journal of Medicine examined the actions that teenage girls who are sexually active would take if they could not access prescription contraceptives without their parents’ consent when they went to seek reproductive health services at the health facility. What they found out is quite disturbing for anyone. Ultimately, 47% of all the teenage adolescent girls respondent that they would discontinue all services for reproductive healthcare rendered by clinics if they were denied contraceptives without their parents’ first being consulted and agreeing. These teenagers would stop accessing protective services. Worst even, they would also discontinue their receiving of treatment and testing for STDs, even HIV. Besides, 13% of these girls would stop using some services for reproductive health care or delay being treated or tested for STDs and HIV. This, therefore, means that summed up, 60% of these teenage girls would either slow or stop accessing health care services that are very critical (Eichner 97). Sadly, only 1% would stop having sex. Further, 99% of all these teens, including the ones that would either delay or stop assessing STD treatment and testing and the access to contraceptive services said they would not stop having sex (Prescott & Heather 34). This study proves that the promise of privacy is a prime determining factor of whether or not a young person will try to access essential health services (Prescott & Heather 35). Actually, in another national research, it was found that the number one reason for teenagers for not accessing health care even when they knew of its importance was the worry about confidentiality (Miller & Geoffrey 69).
Denying teenagers contraception because of lack of parental consent puts the teens’ lives and health at risk. This is because the lack of contraceptives does not necessarily mean that the teens will stop having sex (Runzheimer, Jane & Linda 56). If any, this action only serves to chase them away from hospitals and providers of family planning services. The teens then miss or postpone treatment and screening for STDs, contraceptive services, gynecological exams and other essential health care services. This is risky because research already proves that teenagers are a high-risk population already (Selman et al. 25). It shows that more than half of all HIV infections that are new in the United States happen during adolescence. Annually, three million United States get a sexually transmitted disease. STDs are dangerous because when they are not detected and treated, they have long-term consequences like infertility (McKinney 32). Teenage girls have also been found to have the highest rates that have been reported of Gonorrhea and Chlamydia. About nine hundred thousand teenage girls get pregnant annually. In fact, 40% of the girls in the United States get pregnant at least once before they turn twenty. Introducing strict rules of first having the consent of a parent would make these alarming numbers go higher (Prescott 38). When a teenager engages in sex actively and fails to use protection, s/he has a 90% probability of becoming pregnant in just one year. Additionally, in just one unprotected sexual act with a partner who is infected, a teenage girl bears a 1% probability of contracting HIV/Aids, a 50% probability of contracting gonorrhea, and a 30% probability of being genital herpes (Secura & Gina 1318).
Besides, major medical groups oppose the mandates by the government of preventing teenagers from getting contraception unless they had their parents’ consent. Medical experts fear that when they are denied birth control because of the lack of parents’ consent, the teens will be less able to protect themselves from STDs and unwanted pregnancy (Teitelbaum Joel & Wilensky 57). These leading medical organizations are, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Public Health Association, among others (McKinney 42). These groups have been in the front line vocally opposing efforts to impose parental consent or notification requirements in programs that are federally funded.
These experts recently explained to Congress in a letter that many of the teenagers that seek services at programs that are federally funded are usually already sexually active. They also expressed fears that mandating the involvement of parents would only discourage these teens from getting these much-needed health services (Prescott 43). This would, in turn, increase their risk of getting unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In the letter, they also talked about how studies indicate that the main reason why adolescents delay their accessing of contraception is that they fear to be discovered by their parents. Other studies that they considered are those that prove that many teens would avoid entirely accessing services if it were required that their parents get involved (Secura & Gina 1316).
It is also important to recognize and accept that preventing the access of contraception by teens unless they first tell their parents will not in any way improve communication by the family. The supporters of the measures that are meant to force teens first to tell and then get consent from their parents say that this talk will improve the communications in that family (Guldi 826). The government cannot mandate healthy communication by the household. Already the federal law requires that the providers of health care in family planning clinics that are federally funded to urge young people and their parents to talk about the decisions that they should take regarding their health issues (Miller & Geoffrey 74).
However, many teens will simply not get contraception if they cannot get it confidentially. There are many reasons for this phenomenon. Some understandably have the fear that when their parents discover that they are having sex, they might abuse or abandon them. Some teens might face severe consequences or violence from their parents when they inform them that they are sexually active and are therefore looking to get contraceptive services. They, therefore, fear retribution (Secura & Gina 1320).
Others do not even have a reliable, responsible, caring parent to whom they can talk to about sex and contraceptives and get permission from in the first place. Even the teens who might comply with the requirements of parental consent would face delays in accessing these services and get the contraceptives late, and at times maybe too late when they are already pregnant or have already contracted a disease. Besides, with them having to make additional visits to the clinic, they will incur more expenses as they might be forced to miss school or work (Eichner 47).
Many teenage girls are in nontraditional families and situations whereby they only have one parent, stay on their own, have a stepparent, or leave with other relatives. In many households in the United States today, people do not stay with their biological parents. Therefore, it might be impossible for one to get in contact with his/her biological parents when it is a requirement by the law (Secura & Gina 1321).
Some teenagers come from families that do not openly discuss sexuality. According to Emanuel & Steven, the mandating legislation on the involvement of parents in their teens’ decisions about sex cannot change a family with bad communication into a model of the ideal American family (Emanuel & Steven 39). Making teenagers talk to their parents about sex and contraception cannot magically change such families. It will just force the teens to have unsafe and unprotected sex.
Requiring that young people involve their parents in reproductive health matters is a way of violating their rights. The Constitution of the United States defends the right of a minor to privacy during the access of contraceptives. The Supreme Court, in the case of Carey v. Population Services International, relied on the privacy rights of young people in nullifying a New York law, which denied adolescents of below 16 years the right to buy condoms (Teitelbaum, Joel & Wilensky 59). The Court made the conclusion that privacy rights of making decisions about procreation also applied to teenagers. It further held that the state had no right to withdraw the means used by teenagers of protecting themselves by trying to discourage sexual activity in them. Justice John Paul Stevens further explained that denying teenagers contraception access to reduce the effects brought about by underage sex is not rational (McKinney 48). He compared this action to the State deciding to show the dangers brought by motorcycles and therefore its disapproval by making the use of safety helmets illegal. This is a form of harm that has been mandated the government and the Constitution forbid it (Runzheimer, Jane & Linda 34).
Lower courts follow the principles expressed in Carey v. Population Services International, to invalidate requirement of the involvement of the parents for contraception. For example, the principles were used in the case of Planned Parenthood Association v. Matheson, where a court in a federal district court documented that the decision by a teenager on whether to prevent conception or conceive is one of the most sensitive and private decision in life (Teitelbaum Joel & Wilensky 80). It was therefore concluded that the state could not force a comprehensive requirement of parental notification by minors who are looking to exercise a right that is constitutionally protected to make a decision on whether or not to beget a baby or to use contraceptives. In addition to these constitutional rights for minors, sources that are the most important for federal funds for family planning in the United States call for confidentiality for young ones who seek services of family planning in those programs (Guldi 825). These federal programs are Medicare and Title X. Title X gives states funds for the services of family planning. On the other hand, helps women who earn low incomes by covering their health care services. These two programs mandate that the providers of health care services treat patients including teens with confidentiality if they are to receive monies from the federal government (Teitelbaum Joel & Wilensky 74). Bringing in the aspect of requirements for parental involvement would be to go impermissibly against the demands of the federal government program. The rules by the federal program that mandate confidentiality obstruct any efforts made by different states to come up with new demands (Miller & Geoffrey 74).
Consistently, federal courts have made the ruling that parental notification and consent requirements conflict with this mandate impermissibly. Additionally, all states in America have passed laws that permit teens to get health care for STDs without the involvement of parents. Most of these regions even have legal provisions that guarantee confidentiality to those who would wish to access contraceptives too (Selman et al. 41). In the states that do not have express laws even, young people still possess the constitutional right to get confidential health care. Compulsory involvement of parents would symbolize a hazardous reversal of public health policies that are long-standing (Eichner 91).
In conclusion, coming up with restrictions on teens’ contraception access by putting up requirements of parental involvement and consent is risky to the health and welfare of the teenagers and their families. This is because the bad law and policy would raise the risk of having pregnancies that have not been planned for and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Selman et al. 30). These two are more disadvantageous than letting policies of protecting our teenagers prevail. The cost to the American taxpayers and the teen’s parents of maintaining teenage pregnancies and babies is high, and the pain of contracting STDs is too much especially for young people (Teitelbaum Joel & Wilensky 69).
There are programs connected to the monies of federal family planning, which forbid the requirement by health care services providers of a teenager getting parental consent after informing them first. Young people also have a constitutional right that safeguards their privacy when they decide to get birth control. Because of the reasons discussed in this essay, lawmakers and implementers should respect the teen’s right to privacy in treatment. They should also recognize that denying young people contraceptives when they do not have parental consent is disadvantageous.
Works cited
Eichner, Maxine. “The Supportive State: Families, Government, and America's Political Ideals.” Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
Emanuel, Steven. “Constitutional Law.” Austin: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2008. Print.
Guldi, Melanie. "Fertility effects of abortion and birth control pill access for minors." Demography 45.4 (2008): 817-827.
McKinney, Emily S. “Maternal-child Nursing”. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier/Saunders, 2013. Print.
Miller, Geoffrey. “Pediatric Bioethics.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.
Prescott, Heather M. “Student Bodies: The Influence of Student Health Services in American Society & Medicine”. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Print.
Runzheimer, Jane, and Linda J. Larsen. “Medical Ethics for Dummies.” Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. Web.
Selman, Jan, Jane Heather, and Jane Heather. “Theatre, Teens, Sex Ed: Are We There Yet?” London: Springer, 2015. Print.
Teitelbaum, Joel B, and Sara E. Wilensky. “Essential Readings in Health Policy and Law.” Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2009. Print.
Secura, Gina M., et al. "Provision of no-cost, long-acting contraception, and teenage pregnancy." New England Journal of Medicine 371.14 (2014): 1316-1323.Top of Form
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