Forced Parental Notification: Dangerous and Unnecessary

Abortion among teenagers should be made less necessary, not more difficult and dangerous. Many young women are fortunate to have loving and supportive parents and these teens overwhelmingly include their parents in their reproductive health decisions. However, pregnant teenagers also come from troubled homes, where they risk physical and mental abuse by disclosing to one or both of their parents that they are pregnant or are terminating the pregnancy.  . New Mexico should be most concerned with protecting the most vulnerable teens—teens who have been or are at great risk of physical and sexual abuse from their families --from unwanted pregnancy. Mandating parental involvement does not solve the problems associated with teenage pregnancy. Instead it unnecessarily puts our most vulnerable youth at risk of harm
 
REQUIRING PARENTAL CONSENT/NOTIFICATION IS UNNECESSARY

• Most parents are already involved in a teen’s decision to terminate a pregnancy.ⁱ Only 10% of all abortions are performed on minors and, of those, 7 out of 10 minors involve their parents.
• Laws mandating parental notice or consent actually harm the young women they purport to protect by increasing illegal and self-induced abortion, family violence, suicide, later abortions and unwanted childbirth.

REQUIRING PARENTAL CONSENT/NOTIFICATION IS DANGEROUS
• Over half of formerly-abused pregnant teens report assaults during their pregnancy, most often by a family member. ii 67% of rapes reported to law enforcement in NM in 2009 were children.iii 48% of rape victims who reported to service providers in 2009 in New Mexico were children.^iv 88% of all rape victims know the offendersand 35% of these offenders are family members.

• The American Medical Association has noted that “[b]ecause the need for privacy may be compelling, minors may be driven to desperate measures to maintain the confidentiality of their pregnancies. They may run away from home, obtain a ‘back alley’ abortion, or resort to self-induced abortion. The desire to maintain secrecy has been one of the leading reasons for illegal abortion deaths since . . . 1973.^v
• Requiring parental consent or notification endangers young women by forcing some women to turn to illegal or self-induced abortion, to delay the procedure and increase the medical risk, or to bear a child against their will.^vi
• Teenage girls are more than 24 times more likely to die from childbirth than from first trimester legal abortions.vii
• Fewer than 60 percent of teen mothers graduate from high school by age 25—compared to 90 percent of those who postpone childbearing.viii Additionally, among African-American and Hispanic teens, those who postpone childbearing until age 20 are more likely to complete some college education.^ix
• Twenty-five percent of teen mothers live below the federal poverty line.^x Nearly 80 percent of teen mothers eventually go on welfare.^xi Teens that give birth also spend a greater length of time receiving public assistance— an average of three years longer than older mothers through age 35.^xii Teen mothers are also more likely to have lower family incomes later in life.^xiii

 
STATE AND FEDERAL LAW PROTECT YOUTH’S PRIVACY IN MAKING SIMILAR HEALTHCARE DECISIONS

• 50 states and the District of Columbia authorize minors to consent to the diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections without parental consent.^xiv
• The United States Supreme Court recognized that confidential access to contraceptives for minors is protected by their constitutional right to privacy.^xv Federal law requires confidentiality for minors receiving family-planning services through publicly funded programs such as Title X and Medicaid.^xvi

JUDICIAL BYPASS PROVISIONS FAIL TO PROTECT YOUNG WOMEN

• Court proceedings are intimidating and difficult even for adults represented by capable attorneys. For young women without lawyers, seeking a court order is even more daunting and overwhelming and at times impossible.
• Requiring teens to go to court violates their privacy, particularly in rural areas.
• Court intervention delays healthcare, thus increasing the health risks associated with termination of a pregnancy.^xvii
• In states requiring court intervention, judges have denied young women the ability to terminate their pregnancies due to their personal biases and beliefs. xviii

 
GROUPS OPPOSING PARENTAL CONSENT/NOTIFICATION LEGISLATION:

• The American Medical Association states “Physicians should not feel or be compelled to require minors to involve their parents before deciding whether to undergo an abortion. . .”^xix
• The American Academy of Pediatrics also opposes parental-involvement laws.^xx
• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) opposes requiring parental consent/ notification.
• The New Mexico Coalition for Choice, including the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Planned Parenthood New Mexico, ACLU-NM, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), the League of Women Voters, Women’s Policy Agenda, Young Women United.

ⁱ Stanley K. Henshaw & Kathryn Kost, Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortion Decisions, 24 FAMILY PLANNING PERSPECTIVES 197, 199-200 (1992).
ⁱⁱ American Psychological Association, Parental Consent Laws for Adolescent Reproductive Health Care: What Does the Psychological Research Say? (Feb. 2000), citing A.B. Berenson, et al., Prevalence of Physical and Sexual Assault in Pregnant Adolescents, 13 J. OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH 466-69 (1992).
ⁱⁱⁱ Caponera, Betty, Ph.D., “Sex Crime Trends in New Mexico: An Analysis of Data from the New Mexico Interpersonal Violence Data Central Repository 2005-2009,” (July, 2010).
^iv Id.
^v Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs American Medical Association, Mandatory Parental Consent to Abortion, 269 JAMA 83 (1993).
^vi Advocates for Youth, Adolescent Childbearing and Education and Economic Attainment (Oct. 1995), at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsadlchd.htm, citing Plotnick & Butler, Attitudes and Adolescent Nonmarital Childbearing: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 6 J. OF ADOLESCENT RESEARCH 470 (1991).
vii. Howard W. Ory, Mortality Associated with Fertility and Fertility Control: 1983, 15 FAMILY PLANNING PERSPECTIVES 59 (1983).
viii. Namkee Ahn, Teenage Childbearing and High School Completion: Accounting for Individual Heterogeneity, 26 FAMILY PLANNING PERSPECTIVES 18 (1994); Saul D. Hoffman, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, By the Numbers: The Public Costs of Teen Childbearing (October 2006).
^ix Advocates for Youth, Adolescent Childbearing and Education and Economic Attainment (Oct. 1995), at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsadlchd.htm, citing Plotnick & Butler, Attitudes and Adolescent Nonmarital Childbearing: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 6 J. OF ADOLESCENT RESEARCH 470 (1991).
^x Advocates for Youth, Adolescent Childbearing and Education and Economic Attainment (Oct. 1995), at http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fsadlchd.htm, citing Plotnick & Butler, Attitudes and Adolescent Nonmarital Childbearing: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 6 J. OF ADOLESCENT RESEARCH 470 (1991). citing Hoffman, et al., Reevaluating the Cost of Teenage Childbearing, 30 DEMOGRAPHY 1 (1993).
xi. Annie E. Casey Foundation, supra note 36.
^xii Saul D. Hoffman, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, By the Numbers: The Public Costs of Teen Childbearing (October 2006).
xiii

THE ALAN GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE, SEX AND AMERICA’S TEENAGERS 61-62 (New York: 1994); NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, RISKING THE FUTURE:

ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY, PREGNANCY, AND CHILDBEARING 130 (Cheryl D. Hayes ed., National Academy Press 1987).
^xiv The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Minors’ !ccess to STD Services, STATE POLICIES IN BRIEF, Oct. 1, 2008
^xv Carey v. Population Services International, 431 U.S. 678 (1977).
^xvi New York v. Heckler, 719 F.2d 1191 (S.D.N.Y. 1983) (striking down regulation requiring parental notification within 10 days of a Title X-funded family planning center providing prescription drugs or devices to unemancipated minor because such law conflicted with the program requirements of Title X); Planned Parenthood Association of Utah v. Dandoy, 810 F.2d 984 (10^th Cir. 1987) (holding state law requiring parental consent for Medicaid conflicted with federal law, which requires states participating in the Medicaid program to provide family planning assistance to eligible minors without parental involvement).
^xvii Hodgson v. Minnesota, 648 F.Supp. 756, 763-64 (D. Minn. 1986).
xviii Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417, 420 (1990) (requiring a bypass procedure for a two-parent notification statute); Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 510 (1990) (requiring bypass procedures for parental consent statutes).
^xix American Medical Association, Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs, Mandatory Parental Consent to Abortion, CODE OF MEDICAL ETHICS 1996-1997 EDITION, § 2.015 (issued June 1994) (based on the report, Mandatory Parental Consent to Abortion (issued June 1992) 269 JAMA 82-86 (1993)).
^xx American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Adolescence, The Adolescent's Right to Confidential Care When Considering Abortion, 97 PEDIATRICS 746 (1996).