Birth Control: No Parental Consent Needed
In our story about a 15-year-old developmentally disabled teenager who was financially, emotionally and sexually exploited by peers at her school, we showed how her counselor from a community counseling center helped the girl obtain a Depo Provera shot. That’s a hormone injection that serves as birth control. Her mother knew nothing about it.
That surprised many friends and colleagues I talked to about this story. But in Washington state, the law (RCW 9.02.100) provides that birth control services may be obtained at any age without parental consent.
Something else is surprising about her trip to the clinic: a chart note written by the nurse who examined the teenager.
The nurse writes: (The patient) is “in counseling for sexual assault. Counselor knows Amanda is being exploited sexually at school, but nothing can be done about (it). Has consulted legal counsel.”
Experts we worked with on this story were shocked by those notes. To use the words “assault” and “exploited” in the same paragraph with “nothing can be done” doesn’t make any sense to Dr. Kathleen O’Shaunessy, a clinical psychologist. She says, “No, something not only could be done, but should be done, and wasn’t done. That suggests to me a lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding or a severe misreading of the mandated reporting requirements of the law.”
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