As Texas State Representative Phil King, who sponsored the change in his state, commented, “I think it will do what intended to do by bringing parents into the decision-making process, and when that happens, we’ll see a reduction in abortion and in teenage pregnancy.” 14ĭespite this belief by some politicians, only three studies have analyzed whether laws that require parental consent have a greater impact on the behavior of minors than laws that require parental notification, and they report widely disparate estimates and have major methodological weaknesses. * 1, 13 Such changes are motivated by a belief that a notice requirement is easier to circumvent than a consent statute, and that a stricter law will lead to fewer abortions. Parental involvement laws regarding minors’ access to abortion in the United States, 2009Īlthough the national map of parental involvement laws is unlikely to change appreciably in the near future, since 2003, four states-Arizona, Arkansas, Texas and Virginia-have converted their parental notification statutes to laws that require parental consent.
#Alabaa judicial consent series#
7 – 9 In a series of studies, researchers analyzed a parental involvement law under circumstances consistent with the current distribution of laws: Implementation of the Texas parental notification law in 2000 was associated with a decline in abortion rates, a rise in birthrates and an elevated likelihood of minors’ obtaining an abortion after 12 weeks’ gestation. 3 – 6 The few studies that were able to measure abortion by minors’ state of residence generally showed a small, if any, association. 2 Studies that used data on abortion by state of occurrence often found that implementation of parental involvement laws was associated with substantial decreases in teenage abortion rates. Most research on parental involvement laws pertains to an earlier period, when interstate travel by minors to avoid compliance with a law was more common. The implications of this legal environment on the reproductive outcomes of minors are not well understood. 1 In some states-Florida, for example-minors who want to obtain an abortion without parental involvement must travel hundreds of miles to a state that does not have one of these restrictive laws.
Almost all states in the middle and southern parts of the United States require that before a physician performs an abortion on a minor, he or she must notify or obtain consent from at least one of the minor’s parents ( Figure 1).
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