Confidential reproductive health care for adolescents
Jones, R.K.; Boonstra, H.
Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology 17(5): 456-460
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 1040-872X PMID: 16141757 DOI: 10.1097/01.gco.0000178335.36140.49Document Number: 256632
There have been recent legislative efforts in the USA to implement mandated parental involvement for minor adolescents seeking services for contraception and, in some cases, sexually transmitted diseases. Research collecting information from adolescents in family planning clinics shows that the majority report that a parent knows they use the clinic for sexual health services. Similarly, a majority of minor adolescent females expects that they would use family planning clinics for prescription contraception, even if parental involvement were required. About one in five expected she would obtain contraception from a private doctor. A substantial minority, however, would engage in unsafe sex, and this response would be more common among teenagers whose parents did not know they used the clinic. Parental involvement laws for contraception might discourage some teenagers from using other services, such as testing or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. It is likely that mandated parental involvement laws would do little to decrease levels of teenage sexual activity but would, instead, increase rates of teenage pregnancy and, perhaps, rates of sexually transmitted diseases.