Should Tennagers Be Allowed to Get Birth Control Without Parent Consent?
Should Teenagers Be Allowed to Get Birth Control without the Permission of Parents?
KaTrina Bacon
English 215
February 2, 2012
Dr.Sharonda Johnson
Should Teenagers Be Allowed to Get Birth Control without the Permission of Parents?
Of all the many controversies that have affected the United States in the past decades, birth control has been one of the more important topics. Some popular birth control methods are the female and male condoms, and the birth control pill. Even though both of these help protect against pregnancy and the female and the male condoms help protect against HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STD). This raises the question, should teenagers be allowed to receive birth control methods without their parents’ permission. The answer is teenage girls should not be allowed to receive birth control without parent consent.
There are many reasons why birth control methods should not be available to teenagers without their parent’s knowledge. Among the reasons are because this encourages premarital sex, it hinders communication between parent and child, and it forces the child to make adult decisions about medication, and that can be harmful to the teen. Foremost, I believe it is appropriate to keep in mind that one is not granted the ability to vote until they reach the age of 18. Laws and procedures vary from state to state, even though most states do not have a law about receiving birth control methods. But the idea of teens making a decision to add medication into their daily lives is ridiculous, even more since the government has already determined that they are not ready to make an extremely important decision as far as voting. Therefore allowing teens to obtain prescription birth control without parents’ knowledge interferes with the parent/child relationship.
There are rules and regulations that require government funded hospitals to contact parents if their teenager would like to receive prescription birth control and
KaTrina Bacon
English 215
February 2, 2012
Dr.Sharonda Johnson
Should Teenagers Be Allowed to Get Birth Control without the Permission of Parents?
Of all the many controversies that have affected the United States in the past decades, birth control has been one of the more important topics. Some popular birth control methods are the female and male condoms, and the birth control pill. Even though both of these help protect against pregnancy and the female and the male condoms help protect against HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STD). This raises the question, should teenagers be allowed to receive birth control methods without their parents’ permission. The answer is teenage girls should not be allowed to receive birth control without parent consent.
There are many reasons why birth control methods should not be available to teenagers without their parent’s knowledge. Among the reasons are because this encourages premarital sex, it hinders communication between parent and child, and it forces the child to make adult decisions about medication, and that can be harmful to the teen. Foremost, I believe it is appropriate to keep in mind that one is not granted the ability to vote until they reach the age of 18. Laws and procedures vary from state to state, even though most states do not have a law about receiving birth control methods. But the idea of teens making a decision to add medication into their daily lives is ridiculous, even more since the government has already determined that they are not ready to make an extremely important decision as far as voting. Therefore allowing teens to obtain prescription birth control without parents’ knowledge interferes with the parent/child relationship.
There are rules and regulations that require government funded hospitals to contact parents if their teenager would like to receive prescription birth control and
References: 1.) Center for Family Medicine Fairview Health System. Patient Education Series. Cleveland, Ohio. 2001. 2.) Betsy and Michael Weisman. What We Told our Kids About Sex. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 1987. 3.) DSTD Disease Information. 11 November 2001. http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/disease_info.htm#GenInfo 4.) Fox News 2 February 2012. http://www.foxnews.com 5.) www.helpme.com