It’s no surprise that pregnant teens face unique challenges. As if finishing high school weren’t difficult enough for a pregnant woman or a young mother, some school districts count the days she misses before and just after birth as unexcused absences.  And then today there’s news, via Cara, that a Maryland school district has decided to inform parents whenever a student is is pregnant, regardless of the student’s wishes. This despite the fact that, under state law, teens have a right to make decisions about their reproductive lives independent of their parents. Not only that, but pregnant teens also have the penumbra of federal constitutional privacy rights that other women have too. What’s more, there’s broad agreement that the policy is bad for the health of both pregnant teens and their fetuses.  

Health experts say that students’ willingness to seek care will decline.“There’s no question this will have a chilling effect on kids coming forward,” said County Health Officer Peter Beilenson. “It’s going to slow down health care.”Howard’s policy “really pushes the issue of informing the parents, when state law says minors have the right to make decisions independent of the parents,” said Deborah Chilcoat, an education and training specialist for Planned Parenthood of Maryland and co-chair of a county coalition on adolescent sexuality and reproductive health. “It’s not going to be in the best interests of young people in Howard County,” she said.  

What’s the school district’s response to all this? Well, just that “parents have a right to know.” Implicit in that statement is the idea that the parents’ right trumps the young woman’s right…which in this context seems totally preposterous. Especially since, as Cara points out, the policy is also probably gender discriminatory:

The thing is that these girls are getting f—-d over on every count. You can bet that the school isn’t going to demand the name of the father, and then call his parents if that boy is a student. Because what boys do with their penises is almost always ultimately up to boys. And these pregnant teens aren’t exactly going to “get away” with not telling their parents, anyway.  

This policy is just another example (others include states’ prosecuting pregnant women who are addicted to drugs) of states, cities, and other governmental entities taking steps that are ostensibly to “protect” fetuses and women but that ultimately endanger them. These policies push women away from seeking pre-natal care, which has been proven time and again to be vitally important to maternal and fetal health. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under paternalistic patriarchy, education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.