Do parental involvement laws deter risky teen sex?

Do parental involvement laws deter risky teen sex?

Parental involvement (PI) laws require that physicians notify or obtain consent from a parent(s) of a minor seeking an abortion before performing the procedure. Several studies suggest that PI laws curb risky sexual behavior because teens realize that they would be compelled to discuss a subsequent pregnancy with a parent. We show that prior evidence based on gonorrhea rates overlooked the freq...

Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Laws requiring minors to seek parental consent or to notify a parent prior to obtaining an abortion raise the cost of risky sex for teenagers. Assuming choices to engage in risky sex are made rationally, parental involvement laws should lead to less risky sex among teens, either because of a reduction of sexual activity altogether or because teens will be more fastidious in the use of birth con...

The effect of parental involvement laws on teen birth control use.

In Volume 32, Issue 5 of this journal, Colman, Dee, and Joyce (CDJ) used data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (NYRBS) and found that parental involvement (PI) laws had no effect on the probability that minors abstain from sex or use contraception. We re-examine this question, augmenting the NYRBS with data from the State Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (SYRBS), and use a variety of id...

Do Laws Requiring Parental Involvement to Obtain an Abortion Help Reduce STIs Among Minors?

A competing theory of teen reproductive behavior argues that teens give little consideration to the costs of an unwanted pregnancy when deciding to have sex. Under this model, changes in laws that alter the price of accessing reproductive health services have little effect on sexual activity. It is only after an act of unprotected intercourse or contraceptive failure—when faced with an unwanted...

Do Alliances Really Deter?