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Today, nearly 70 percent of U.S. teens are sexually active by the time they graduate from high school - and Granite State youth are no exception. (This figure actually represents a slight decline in teen sexual activity since the 1980s.) The great news is that New Hampshire has the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. According to the Guttmacher Institute, teens between the ages of 15-17 account for just 5 percent of abortions provided in the state. Among teenagers who have abortions, six in ten involve a parent or trusted adult in making the decision.
Which means that this year, fewer than 70 teens who obtain an abortion in New Hampshire will do so without a parent's knowledge - compared to over 15,300 high school students who probably will not inform their parents that they recently engaged in binge-drinking, or more than 5,400 teens who aren't planning to tell mom & dad that they have first-hand experience with the dangerous combination of drinking and driving.
Every parent worries about the health and safety of their child at every age and stage of development. As the parent of two teenage sons and a person who was once a teenager herself, I can verify that children take risks and are capable of demonstrating an appalling lack of judgment when it comes to preserving their personal wellbeing. But parental notification and consent laws, which are currently in place in 34 states, are not designed to address an urgent public or child health risk - in fact, current research suggests that parental notification requirements increase the risk of adverse health outcomes for teens who want to terminate a pregnancy.
Nor are these measures genuinely intended to address parents' concerns or alter adolescent sexual behavior: there is no substantive evidence that parental notification laws improve family communication, reduce the number of teen abortions, or discourage teenagers from engaging in behavior that can lead to unintended pregnancy.
The sole intention of parental notification requirements is to restrict access to safe, legal abortion for an especially vulnerable population as a strategic step toward revoking every woman's right to make her own reproductive health decisions - including the right to decide whether and when to bear children - without interference from the state. As one frustrated pro-choice senior recently said to me, "It's still about men wanting to control women's bodies." I would only amend her observation to add that there are plenty of women in politics who built their careers on undermining other women's reproductive and civil rights.
Thanks to pro-choice leaders in Concord, New Hampshire has rejected repeated attempts to pass parental notification laws. It's unlikely that we have seen the final skirmish on that particular battlefield - even though the last major round to defend this key piece of anti-choice turf cost Granite State taxpayers $300,000. In any case, it's nice to know that Katrina Swett is finally on our side.
Warning: Public Service Announcement/Shameless Self-Promotion
The best and only way to for parents to know what's going on in their kids lives is to be available and keep the lines of communication open. Local community health organizations and agencies - including Planned Parenthood of Northern New England - offer comprehensive, accurate information about family planning and reproductive health for adolescents and adults, as well as resources for parents who want to know how to talk to their teens about sexuality and sexual health.
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