Planned Parenthood-funded study says girls 'impeded' from use of sexual health services     8/15/2002
By Tanya L. Green, J.D.

Notifying parents before girls are given contraceptives would put girls at risk because they wouldn’t use Planned Parenthood’s services, according to a Planned Parenthood-funded study in the Journal of the American Medical Association published on Wednesday.

“Any ‘survey’ done by ‘family planning’ proponents or clinics will be biased,” Concerned Women for America’s Senior Policy Director Wendy Wright said.

“Their livelihood depends on it,” she added. “STD and teen pregnancy rates skyrocketed since so-called family planning clinics came on the scene. They are clearly the problem, not the solution.”

The study asserts that mandatory parental notification would “impede adolescent girls’ use of sexual health care services,” thereby increasing teen pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases. If parental notification were to become mandatory, most girls under 18 would stop (or limit) their use of such services, but continue to have sex, according to the study.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Inc., the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Urban Initiatives and Research, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues funded the study. Research was conducted in the spring of 1999 with data collected from all 33 Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin.

“This study demonstrates that the government should not erect barriers to teens who are trying to act responsibly and seek information, assistance and important medical care,” said Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin’s Vice President of Public Affairs Lisa Boyce. “Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin recognizes the importance of parental involvement and encourages teens to involve parents in their health care decisions, and the vast majority do, but not every family is a model family. Laws unfortunately can't mandate good family communications, but supportive education and counseling can help parents and teens communicate.”

A total of 950 sexually active girls (ages ranging 12-17 years) completed the questionnaire at the clinics while waiting for their appointments. Researchers collected additional data in 2001 from three Planned Parenthood clinics in Milwaukee, where a total of 230 sexually active girls between 12 and 17 completed the questionnaire.

The researchers—who noted that at least 10 state legislatures have introduced bills to mandate parental notification for prescribed contraceptives—said their objective was to determine the effect such a law would have on the use of sexual health services by adolescent girls.

“I’d say their objective was to scare legislators and ensure a steady flow of confused, desperate girls as clients for Planned Parenthood,” said Robert Knight, director of CWA’s Culture and Family Institute. “All sex surveys are notoriously unreliable, but this one is especially suspect since it is funded by the very people who will make money performing abortions on these young girls. Legislators should take this study with a grain of salt, and the Journal of the American Medical Association should do some soul-searching as to why they appear to be substituting political correctness in place of good science in this case.”

Fifty-nine percent of the girls in the statewide sample said they would stop using all sexual health care services, delay testing or treatment for HIV or other STDs, or discontinue use of specific sexual health care services if their parents were notified that they were seeking prescribed contraceptives, the study reported. Moreover, 11 percent said they would discontinue or delay STD testing and treatment, even if mandatory parental notification would occur only for prescribed birth control.

Forty-eight percent of the girls in the 2001 sampling said they would stop using services if their parents were notified that they were seeking prescribed birth control pills or devices. Fifty-seven percent said they would use condoms; 29 percent would have their partner withdraw before ejaculation; and 29 percent would have unprotected sex.

But the researchers admit the girls’ responses may not be entirely reliable.

“The girls’ actual behavior may be different from their projected behavior,” the researchers wrote. “Some girls may have responded in ways they presumed the service providers would want or used their responses to voice their opposition to mandatory parental notification.”

One expert associated with Planned Parenthood acknowledged that the questionnaire might have confused the girls. “I think it’s kind of a complex question for adolescents to understand,” Rachel Jones, a senior research associate at the Planned Parenthood-affiliated The Alan Guttmacher Institute, told The New York Times. “The way the question was worded might have overestimated the willingness of adolescents to access services other than contraception.”

Nonetheless, the researchers “speculate” that “requiring parental notification for obtaining prescribed contraceptives would impede adolescent girls’ use of [them] and their willingness to seek screening and treatment for STDs.”

“Family planning proponents have a vested interest in keeping parents in the dark and being the main provider of information on sex to kids,” CWA’s Wright said. “The best deterrent for teen pregnancy and sexual activity is communication with parents. Less communication means more teen sexual activity.”

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