Minors have the constitutional right to privacy when it comes to receiving and using contraceptives, but many wonder whether or not minors should be able to decide if they should be put on contraceptives. Parents should and want to know what their children are up to. It is their legal and moral obligation to take care of their child, but when it comes to the topic of contraceptives, they have no authority in the decision. Should parents have the right to decide whether their daughter should be put on the pill? Another issue that seems to never settle down is the topic of parental consent for abortion.  If a patient under the age of sixteen wishes to terminate a pregnancy, the clinic has to inform the patient's parents before any action is taken. Minors, although they are legally unable to make the decision of abortion on their own, have the right to choose what they want to do with their body. No matter what age you are, if you are mature enough to engage in sexual activity, you should be able to decide what you are going to do in the case that you become pregnant. Should parents have to be notified if their child decides to get contraceptives or decide to terminate a pregnancy? 

There are laws in place to protect minors and their right to choose. Title X was passed in 1970 through the Public Health Services Act. It established a nationwide service that helped people receive family planning services. Although after it was established, minors did not take advantage of it because they were unsure of whether or not it was confidential or even applied to them. Minors were made aware that Title X had put two policies in place to ensure that the minors could take advantage of the program. The first policy is that the confidentiality of the minor was always kept and the second policy is to educate the parents and minor to know how important it is to be involved in the decision of contraceptives but to not push the parental involvement. Medicaid require privacy and protection be given to minors who seek help and wish to get contraception. They are required to do so, in order for both programs to receive money from the Federal Government. States with Family Planning Services receive money from Title X.  Medicaid helps women who are of a low income receive the health care support that they need (Center for Reproductive Rights). 

A study was done in 1998 by McHenry County, Illinois. The county decided to forgo federal aid in order to require parental consent before administering birth control to minors. They decided to do this because they wanted to prevent teenagers from having sex. The idea was by forcing the minor to talk to their parents they could receive some wisdom and realize that they were not mature enough to engage in sexual activity and therefore the rate of teenage pregnancy would lower. But instead, the rates grew. They recorded that children born with mothers under the age of nineteen was 2.92%. Two years after enforcing the requirement the amount of children born from teenage mothers raised to 3.44% (Sofer, Dalia). They also included the statistics of three neighboring counties who did not require parental consent. before the experiment the three counties there were 4.54% children born from teenage mothers, but after the two years their rates lowered to 4.38%. McHenry County thought that they were doing something to better the teenagers of their county, but instead they ended up hurting them (Sofer, Dalia). By not giving a teenager the resources they need to keep themselves healthy, protected, and safe they are doing nothing but punishing them and taking away their basic human rights. 

Preventing a teenager from getting contraceptives because their parents will not allow it, or they don't want to inform their parents of their sexual activity only puts them at risk. It is most likely not going to prevent the teenager from having sex. From refusing them contraception, they are at a higher rate for accidental pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. If a clinic refuses to give them contraceptives they will not want to return again for check ups or any other services that can protect them (United Civil Liberties Union). 

Minors have the right to access contraceptives confidentially and access legal abortion options because of the 1972 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Case. The Supreme Court recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment which protects peoples right to privacy did in fact protects a woman's right to make her decision about her health and also what she chooses to do with her body (Roe v. Wade).

In 1982, the Department of Health and Human Services made a proposal to regulate the minors access to contraceptives. This proposal required a letter of notification be sent to a minor's parents to inform them that their child would receive a prescription for birth control in the next ten days. The Department of Health and Human Services proposed this regulation to ensure that parents were involved in the decision and were aware of what their child was up to. The main push for this proposal was the concern that minors would engage in sexual activity without having any knowledge about it. By requiring a minor to talk to their parents the parents would be able to better educate their kids and make sure they were mature enough first (Brozan, Nadine). The Department of Health and Human Services thought that by giving a minor birth control before talking to the parents they would not know the health concerns or be mature enough to handle such a big step in their lives. 

The main supporters of this proposal were parents. Another worry that the parents and Department of Health and Human Services had was the fear that the medical practitioners did not have a real relationship with their patient and therefore have no write to over rule a parent and give their child birth control without informing them. If a medical practitioner has no relationship with the minor how can they really know what is going on in the minor's life and ensure that the minor is really ready? By notifying the parents they believed it would help bridge the communication gap between the parent and child had. According to Adele D. Hofmann, most teenagers do not visit a clinic until they have been sexually active for six months to a year after becoming sexually active (Brozan, Nadine).

 But the down fall of this article is that the minors have other people they can come to when they are concerned about becoming sexually active. If the minor does not talk to their parent about sex it does not mean that they are not properly educated and too immature to have sex. There are many other sources that a minor can use when looking for information about the risks or even just more information about sex. There are medical professionals that can educate them on how to protect themselves and ensure that they are practicing safe sex. There are also school counselors, mentors, coaches, and even older siblings or role models that a minor can contact if they have questions. It is wrong to assume that just because your child is not coming to you about their potential sexual relationship that they are uneducated and immature. Most children just don't feel comfortable talking to their parents about that topic and find other ways to become educated. There are so many ways to be informed in todays society, there are sex education classes that are required in public schools starting as early as elementary school to ensure that kids are well prepared if they decide to become sexually active. Minors should be allowed to receive contraceptives and get the medical assistance they deserve without parental consent. 

In 2013 Planned Parenthood of Montana filed a law suit because legislators were trying to change the laws regarding parental consent for abortions. There is a current law in place that

requires minors to get parental consent before terminating a pregnancy. The law forcing

clinics to notify the parents of a patient under 16 years old before terminating the pregnancy.

But the new law would require parental notification of anyone under 18 years old. Planned

Parenthood in Montana decided that the only way to stop the law was to sue. They believe that this law will not encourage minors to talk to their parents about their pregnancy, it will only make them scared and pull them away from all the services that were put in place to help girls in that same situation. Another flaw they see in the law is that there are circumstances that may prevent children from speaking to their parents, especially if it is an unsafe home, and legislation is not taking that into account (Pieklo, Jessica). 

In the case of unsafe households, the minor may seek help from their family practitioners. The family practitioners can help you receive judicial bypass. Abortion clinics or even your family practitioner can help minors get a referral for an attorney so that the minor can file the judicial bypass against having to get their parents consent. The attorney will make the process of receiving the bypass much easier, and the case will usually be heard within the next week after getting an attorney. The Judge will decide whether the minor is mature enough to make the decision on their own. Most of the time the court finds the minor mature enough and they are able to make their own decision when it comes to aborting their child. There were 477 cases in Massachusetts from 1981 to 1985 where minors used judicial bypass. Ninety percent of those 477 girls were petitioning the court because they preferred not to speak to their parents about their abortion and seeking their parents consent. The other ten percent of minors tried to appeal their parents' refusal to give consent.  Of the 477 minors who petitioned the court 468 were evaluated by the judge and found mature enough and granted their petition. The remaining nine minors were evaluated by the judge as immature but the judge still granted eight of the minors their petition because he found it in their best interest. The remaining minor decided to go out of state to receive an abortion.  (Rodman, Hyman) 

The demographic who push for parental consent laws are parents. Parents believe that if their child needs permission to get their ears pierced or take aspirin at school, then they should definitely need their permission to abort their child.  The parents want their children to talk to them and come to them with these kinds of topics, but the truth is some minors just don't feel comfortable talking to their parents about sex. But minors can talk to their family practitioners and they can help them but they are not allowed to preform an abortion without the permission from the parent(s) (Rodman, Hyman).

 There are ways to get around the parental consent law for abortions, like being an emancipated minor and getting judicial bypass, which is not difficult to receive and in almost every case the minor is granted the bypass. Because it is not difficult for a minor to get around the parental consent laws, suggestions have been made to make it harder for minors to get abortions without parental consent or notification. (Rodman, Hyman). The suggestions are that minors must be evaluated by a mental health professional or specialist and found mentally sound before any plans for abortion are discussed. Another suggestion is that nurses, social workers, or psychologist should make sure that the minor is completely aware of all alternatives and options they have, as well as the risks and outcomes. 

Another issue regarding the topic of minors and their decisions for abortions. "The decision about contraceptives and abortions is urgent because many teenagers engage in sexual activity whether or not they have access to medical contraceptives." (Rodman, Hyman). Many teenagers engage in sexual activity without contraception, and fifty percent of pregnancy among teenagers occur in the first six months after they initiate sexual activity for the first time. The hope is that teenagers will realize that if they are going to be sexually active they need to prevent pregnancy but also to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and infections. This is why teenagers should be able to make the decision of getting contraceptives without their parent's permission. The main thing stopping young girls from talking to their parents about receiving contraceptives is because they are afraid of what their parents will say and fear of disappointing them. 

The longer minors wait to get an abortion the less safe the procedure is, therefore requiring a minor to seek parental permission before having an abortion can be harmful to the minor. Many minors fear talking to their parents about receiving contraceptives, so you can imagine how difficult the conversation would be for a minor to tell their parents that they were to afraid to talk to them about receiving contraceptives so they decided to have unprotected sex, therefore the minor got pregnant and now needs permission to terminate the pregnancy. The topic of sexual activity, abortion, and contraceptives are the most sensitive and difficult to discuss between parents and their children (Rodman, Hyman). Many minors who are on contraceptives say that if they were forced to talk to their parents about receiving their contraception would be too uncomfortable to talk to their parents and therefore would not be on it. 

Teenage girls were asked by The Learning Network of the New York Times, how they felt about the required prescription to get birth control and also if they thought birth control and the morning after pill should be available over the counter. Many wrote back saying they believed that as young women, if they are trying to have safe sex, they shouldn't have to go to a doctor for a prescription (Gonchar, Michael).  The majority of these women wrote back saying that if condoms were on the shelf in the grocery store and drug store, then why can't birth control pills be too? A few women wrote back and said that if the girl was not ready to talk to her parents about being put on the pill, then she was not ready to start a sexual relationship. But most disagreed with her statement. 

From researching the topic of parental consent on contraceptives I learned the affects of not allowing a girl birth control or the option of an abortion. I came to realize that young girls might not be able to come to their parents with that sort of information. All parents want to do is protect their children the best they can but what parents are not seeing is that their children may not be comfortable talking to their parents about the topic of sex. Parents are the ones who push for a change in parental consent laws every couple of years and will continue to push for a change. The fact of matter is; young girls should be allowed to receive the medical assistance that they deserve. If they are responsible enough to seek out a physician for contraceptives they should be allowed to have it. The same minor should be able to terminate a pregnancy if they feel they cannot carry the child. Although parents want to do everything to protect their child, forcing these requirements just pushes their child further away and will make them too uncomfortable to talk to them about the topic of sex. But should they legally be allowed to decide whether their child can have contraceptives?

