Parental rights.

This term is used by conservative forces to deny young people access to contraception, information and counselling, sexuality education and abortion. They argue that parents have the ultimate decision-making power concerning young people's sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), they strongly opposed recognition of adolescent SRHR and partially succeeded in clipping these rights. The language adopted in the final ICPD document was a compromise--ICPD recognises the "rights, duties and responsibilities of parents" in providing guidance to adolescents on sexual and reproductive health matters even as it requires the promotion and protection of "the rights of adolescents to reproductive health education, information and care" (para 7.46), and that access to such services is not restricted. (1) Why can such a seemingly benign term as "parental rights" be so harmful? Instead of protecting adolescents, it often has the opposite effect. "Parental rights" has been used to restrict adolescents' SRHR at the national and local levels, such as in laws or hospital policies requiring parental consent or prior notification for obtaining abortions. While adolescents may want to include their parents in their decision-making, governments and health providers should not mandate that they do so. Indeed, many young women involve a parent when they make a decision to terminate their pregnancy, even without these laws. Those who do not often fear negative consequences, such as abuse, being thrown out of the house, or pressure to carry the pregnancy to term. Legislations and procedures that require parental involvement place adolescents suffering from abuse or incest in further risk. These laws or policies may also cause delay in seeking an abortion, increasing the physical risks of the procedure with each week of delay, or drive adolescents to have abortion procedures which are unsafe but where confidentiality would be assured. (2)