Girls in Texas could get contraceptives at federal clinics as long as a Christian father didn’t mind

Sarah SmithMarch 8, 2023

AMARILLO, Texas. Across the vast Texas Panhandle, blasted with wind and relentless sun, women can spend hours commuting to Haven Health in Amarillo.

One of more than 3,200 federal family planning clinics nationwide, Haven serves both English and Spanish speakers with contraceptives, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection testing, and cervical cancer screening, all at a low cost. or free for restless, poor patients. , or both.

These patients include teenage girls under 18 who are looking for birth control pills or long-acting birth control.

But in a startling judgment in December, a federal judge ruled that such clinics violated Texas law and federal constitutional rights, effectively cutting off a vital source of health care for young women across Texas.

Women’s health advocates and health care providers have denounced the ruling by a conservative judge appointed by President Donald Trump, who is at the center of other reproductive rights cases. It is said to be too broad and unprecedented. (The ordinance applies to national regulations, but is currently enforced only in Texas.)

“We can’t even provide contraceptives for gynecological conditions,” said Carolina Cogdill, CEO of Haven Health, adding that US District Judge Matthew Kachsmarik’s decision had a chilling effect on treatment. “We were approached by a young woman who was bleeding abnormally and we wanted to prescribe birth control to stop the bleeding. And we couldn’t do it because she was 16.” The patient said her mother wouldn’t understand, believing her daughter “is going to go out and have sex and she just doesn’t want to go there,” Cogdill said.

Texas law has long required teenage girls to have parental permission to get prescription birth control. But under the federal Title X program, some clinics can provide birth control without parental consent. Founded in 1970, Title X originated during the “War on Poverty” era and saw broad bipartisan support. The law was signed into law by then-President Richard Nixon, a Republican, to provide family planning services to low-income people, including minors, with the goal of reducing teenage pregnancies.

But in July 2022, weeks after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional protection of abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Alexander R. Deanda, a father of three teenage daughters living in Amarillo, is suing the Department of Health and Human Services. He claimed that the government violated his constitutional right to raise his children.

In his lawsuit, Deanda, a Christian, said that he “raises each of [his] daughters in accordance with Christian teaching on sexuality” and that he could not have “a guarantee that his children would not be able to access prescription contraceptives” that “promote sexual promiscuity and premarital sex.”

In his opinion, Kachmarik agreed, writing that “the use of contraception (as well as abortion) violates the traditional tenets of many denominations, including the practice of the claimant of the Christian faith.”

What’s more, Kaczmarik, who is a Christian, said the existence of federal clinics operating in Texas, where state law otherwise requires parental permission for teenage girls to receive contraceptives, represents an “immediate, modern trauma.”

“Title X clinics are open most of the days and as such they are reporting constant, ongoing and imminent risk,” the judge wrote.

The decision, which cited fourth-century Catholic catechisms and religious texts, stunned legal experts such as Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who said it was part of the growing influence of conservative Christian theology in the courts.

“We have seen religious arguments increasingly coming to the courts under the guise of legal arguments,” Sepper said. “I think we’re seeing a movement that started with religious exclusion saying, ‘Let me structure my health care according to my morals,’ and we’re moving towards an agenda that says, ‘Let me structure all healthcare, according to my morals. “. my morality.”

Neither Deanda nor his attorney Jonathan Mitchell, architectDobbs ban on abortion, responded to requests for comment.

The consequences of teenage pregnancy on a woman’s life can be profound. Half of teenage mothers receive a high school diploma by age 22, compared to 90% of young women who do not give birth in their teens. Being born in adolescence can lead to bad consequences for the next generation: children of teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and end up in jail or prison as teenagers.

Dr. Stephen Griffin, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and a practicing ob/gyn, called young women’s access to contraceptives a “safety issue,” adding that many parents underestimate their teens’ sexual activity.

“We know that people who self-identify as church regulars are more likely to underestimate their child’s sexually risky behavior,” Griffin said. “We know that parents who believe they have open lines of communication with their children” also underestimate the risk.

Texas has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country and the highest rate of recurrent teen pregnancy – more than 1 in 6 teens who gave birth in Texas in 2020 already had a baby. Health experts say a court ruling banning access to contraceptives is likely to boost those numbers in line with other reproductive health restrictions in the state.

“Abortion is illegal in Texas. Children do not receive comprehensive sexuality education in schools. Huge [number] people in Texas are living without health insurance,” said Stephanie LeBlue, acting director of Every Body Texas, which operates more than 150 Title X clinics in the state. “That’s why it’s very difficult to get sexual health services.”

The Biden administration appealed the Texas decision in February. Meanwhile, according to LeBlue, there is no insurance left for teenagers here.

“It robs them of their humanity,” she said. “It potentially deprives them of their future. And it takes away their bodily autonomy and I think young people are more than capable of making decisions about their own health.”

Decades of research shows that teens are more likely to seek sexual help if they can do so in confidence. But for Texans like Christy Covington, the law shouldn’t make exceptions, even in the worst cases.

Covington lives in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin. She grew up in a large evangelical family and passes these teachings on to her three children. Leaving religious objections to birth control aside, the family should be respected, she said.

“God created the world to have parents, and then we had offspring, and for parents to take care of these children, and this is the design,” she said. “And we see it reflected in nature.”

Regarding birth control, she said, “It’s like a band-aid.”

“Let’s give them contraceptives and then we don’t really have to deal with what’s going on in our society where these teenagers get pregnant so quickly and easily,” Covington said.

She added that she was already required to give permission for her children’s health care, including vaccinations. “Honestly, I have to consent to other types of medical care for my children everywhere,” she said. “Why did we decide that this one area is an exception?”

But Rebecca Goodeman, senior director of health at the National Center for Youth Law, said 60% of teens involve their parents in such decisions.

“They do it not because the law requires them to, but because they want to,” Gudeman said.

Some young people just can’t get their parents or guardians involved, she said, including couples like Victoria and Richard Robledo, who started dating and having sex when both were underage. According to Victoria, in those early days she decided to take birth control, but could not seek advice from her mother, a devout Catholic.

“We were a typical Hispanic family,” recalls Victoria. “And that’s why usually in families like mine, they don’t want to talk about boyfriends or sex or anything like that.”

But Victoria found a clinic less than a mile from her school and was able to get free birth control. The couple, who are now married and live in a city just across the New Mexico border, have two children.

Victoria said being able to protect herself from pregnancy as a teenager changed the course of her life, allowing her to go to college and her husband to join the military.

“We were not worried about the fact that we might have a child,” she said. “We were both able to go out and live our own lives.”

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national news service that produces in-depth journalism on health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three main operating programs of the KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is a charitable non-profit organization providing health information to the nation.