8/19/11: Parents Beware
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00 — 1.4MB)
Some sobering news for parents of teenagers: A survey of ob/gyns conducted earlier this year found that 94 percent would provide contraceptives to a minor without notifying her parents.
The doctors were presented with a hypothetical case of a 17-year-old college freshman who asks them for contraceptive pills but does not want her parents to know.
Only 47% said they would encourage the minor to inform a parent, and only 54% would encourage the minor to remain abstinent until she is older.
The study found that doctors with religious affiliations were much more likely to advise abstinence, and to recommend parental involvement.
Michael O’Dea, Founder and Executive Director of the Christus Medicus Foundation, called the findings “the biggest threat to the family, morality and freedom since Roe V. Wade.”