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Laws may promote unprotected sex Laws aimed at forcing teens to have their parents'
permission before getting contraception will not scare them off having
sex and may increase teen pregnancy, say US researchers. And trying to
frighten teens about the risks of pregnancy is equally ineffective, a
second study has found. The researchers said their findings supported
giving teens good information about contraceptives and argued against
federal policies pushing abstinence-only education. Several newly elected senators have pledged to press for a federal notification law, and such laws are also in the works in several states. A study of 1500 girls under 18 who used family planning clinics, which provide contraceptive and pregnancy services, showed the parents of 60 per cent of them knew the teens were using the clinics, said the institute's Rachel Jones. But nearly 20 per cent of the girls said if they had to get their parents' permission to use contraceptives, they would do without, Dr Jones and colleagues wrote in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Only 1 per cent said their response would be to stop having sex,” Dr Jones said. “We need to recognise that mandated parental notification laws would not stop teens from having sex but ultimately would increase rates of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.” In the second study, Peter Bearman, who directs the Columbia University Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, found that fear of pregnancy did little to keep a girl from having sex, and those with positive attitudes about contraception were much less likely to become pregnant. He said even teens who believed they would not have sex before marriage in fact did.
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