Proposition 4 would not have protected me.
I grew up unable to turn to my family for emotional help and support. I’m a world-weary and independent 22-year-old now, but I know that Proposition 4, a proposed state constitutional amendment, would not have protected my younger self from my parents’ reactions. By violating patient privacy, Proposition 4’s well-intentioned but misguided policies would have put me at risk for greater harm ““ against my consent.
Proposition 4 jeopardizes young patients’ freedom to make reproductive health care decisions privately. It has no place alongside the inalienable right to pursue privacy as enshrined in our Declaration of Rights. More distressingly, Proposition 4 also impacts the safety of the young women who survive with parents and adult family members who waver between flagrant child abuse and providing a completely supportive family environment ““ young women like me. They survive in homes where parental notification will cause them more hurt than help. While Proposition 4 may extend parental rights, it also destroys privacy rights that have existed for half a century.
Since 1953, generations of young women have consented to private reproductive health care. Every day, young women make independent decisions with the advice of health care providers about birth control, gynecological health and pregnancies in complete privacy.
In addition to violating the fundamentals of our state constitution, Proposition 4 directly contradicts patient privacy laws like the California Reproductive Privacy Act, legal decisions like the American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, and even the California Health and Safety Code.
For health care services such as mental health, drug abuse rehab and birth control access, California has continually put individual patient rights to privacy, physical safety and psychological well-being before the parent’s “right to know.” Those protections were put in place because unfortunate realities ““ such as child abuse, cultural stigma and dysfunctional home environments ““ leave many patients unable to benefit from confiding in their families.
Like thousands of other young women in families like mine, I had to build a support structure that existed outside of my family: made up of friends, teachers, mentors and health care providers. Just a few years ago, my doctor’s ability to safeguard my patient confidentiality ensured I could make educated and private decisions about my health. Proposition 4 will force doctors to violate medical confidentiality, even if their patient is begging them to protect their privacy. Young women who cannot trust their parents will also find themselves unable to trust doctors.
Proposition 4 even acknowledges that parental notification is not always in the best interests of the patient. Despite this acknowledgement, Proposition 4 wants to change current policies so that pregnant young women will be granted their privacy rights only if they undergo additional stress. Under Proposition 4, patients are forced to choose between losing their privacy, reporting their parents to child welfare authorities or missing school and spending days mired in juvenile court to earn a privacy right that was once a given ““ even when the delay could mean the difference between having a medical abortion or an invasive surgical abortion.
I have always envied my friends ““ the ones who could involve their family members in every aspect of their lives without fear of punishment. Nothing Proposition 4 does could have changed my family to make them more supportive. While non-profit programs supporting teen mothers and child and family services remain woefully under-funded, supporters of Proposition 4 have wasted over $6 million dollars on this twice-rejected ballot measure.
Young women deserve the freedom to decide on their own terms whether or not it is safe to confide in their parents. Forcing an unwilling young woman to disclose an unexpected pregnancy to an unsympathetic family also forces her to put her physical and emotional safety at risk ““ without her consent. Proposition 4 proposes weak substitutes for the existing medical confidentiality laws this constitutional amendment will override. The State Constitution ““ designed to protect privacy ““ should not be used to mandate the violation of medical confidentiality against any patient’s will.
Marissa Minna Lee is a steering committee member of the California Youth Empowerment Network. A recent graduate of UCLA (English-Creative Writing “˜08) she was an undergraduate representative to the 2007-2008 Student Health Advisory Committee.