NC House passes abortion bill + notarized parental consent bill goes forward to NC House floor

[d00ditsemily]

Parents would have to give their teenagers permission before they could receive birth control or be treated for sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse or mental illness, under a bill approved in a House committee on Tuesday

Comments

[silver_apples]

Common-sense authority? Their common sense is going to lead to teenagers not getting necessary medical treatment because they are afraid or ashamed to talk to their parents about it.

How specific do the notarized forms have to be? Can it be "I give my daughter permission to go to the doctor", or does it need to list which doctors and why and what treatments are allowed?

Why is mental illness included in the list? Do they just hate the idea of teenagers turning to anyone but their parents for help, or are they so oblivious they don't realize that sometimes the parents are part of the problem and that some parents are too deep in denial to let their kids get help, not when it means admitting something is wrong.

[4o5pastmidnight]

Their common sense is going to lead to teenagers not getting necessary medical treatment because they are afraid or ashamed to talk to their parents about it.

SERIOUSLY. I am 23 and my mom is super open about sex and sexual health and shit like that, and I STILL have a hard time asking for help when I have a yeast infection or other lady problems I can't handle on my own. If that shit is hard for me, how would it be for an awkward teenager whose parents are super strict and conservative and deny everything about their kid being sexually active?

[recorded]

[muizenstaartje]

“Teenagers were delaying treatment,” Insko said. “They were getting sicker, they were spreading venereal disease, in some cases committing suicide because they could not talk to their parents.”

When I was a teen, I needed treatment for depression caused by abuse from my parents. My parents response: abuse me harder and try to bully me out of using anti-depressants, because it made them look bad. A law like that would mean my parents would have gotten their way and I would be dead.

Yes, let's strip teenagers of their autonomy and make them nothing more than just a part of a family owned by their parents.
How about facing the fact that teens might do or have things you don't like? Things like having sex or getting sick. Making it harder for them to get treatment, won't stop them. In some cases they can't even help it.

[ragnor144]

In high school I had a close friend who was dying from bulimia. She had to pay for plane tickets and treatment at an out-of-state residential program on her own because her parents would not allow their insurance to be billed. She only got treatment because she had been working for years and the treatment center drastically cut their fees. Under this law she too would be dead.

It doesn't even look like there are exceptions that can be granted by the court, although no teen should ever have to prove to a court that their parents are unfit to get treatment.

[zinnia_rose]

And if the teen got their STD from one of their parents, then...?

[muizenstaartje]

Probably:

1) They are filty sluts for seducing their parent.
2) They shouldn't have had sex so they should deal with the consequences.
3) Not the legislators' problem. They either don't have children themselves or "their children would never do that".

I wish I could say it's a hyperbolic joke, but I've seen US politicians say things that are not far from the above.

[shortsweetcynic]

Rep. Marilyn Avila, a Republican from Raleigh, said laws like that have been “undermining our families” for the past 20 or 30 years. She said what’s needed is “less emphasis on individual children and more on the family.”

[nextdrinksonme]

Because it's not like those independent children are going to grow up to be independent adults.