Va. Code 54.1-2969(E) deems minors to be adults for purposes of consenting to treatment for venereal disease, birth control, pregnancy, outpatient treatment of substance abuse, mental illness, or emotional disturbance. Health Department personnel have construed this law to address not only consent to treatment, but to prohibit disclosure to parents of such treatments. We are encouraged by recent amendments to subsection (K) that require that parents have access to the medical records of their minor children, except when the treating physician deems disclosure reasonably likely to cause “substantial harm” to the minor. We urge you to enact Del. Lingamfelter’s proposal to clarify for government employee medical service providers that “substantial harm” means “physical or mental abuse” and to require affirmative notification to parents when they render these services.
The medical conditions addressed in the Code have one thing in common. With the exception of mental health, they are the product of high risk behavior that is likely to recur. Secret governmental actions that lead the teen to believe that the consequences of high risk behavior can be easily avoided by an occasional pill or shot, without even parents learning of it, aggravate rather than reduce the risks to the teen and to society. Parents can play an important part in helping the teen to modify that behavior before it results in serious physical, emotional or other harm to the teen or others. Academic studies report that, of all the influences on teen decisions regarding the onset of sexual activity, none is greater than that of parents. See With One Voice 2004: American Adults and Teens Sound Off About Teen Pregnancy, National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (December 2004), based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health.
While the consent of a parent or guardian before services are rendered is the norm in modern medicine (and such a requirement would be very desirable in the case of these medical services), we recognize that parental notification would represent a significant improvement in the practices of the health department. If the General Assembly truly cares about our families, we expect our elected legislators to change laws that currently condone government employees working with minors behind the backs of their parents! To paraphrase United States Senator and physician Tom Coburn, “no bureaucrat should have the authority to usurp a parent’s role in an area of their child’s life in which one bad decision can have severe and long-lasting emotional and physical consequences.”
HB173 adopts the philosophy wisely adopted ten years ago by the Prince William County School Board (Regulation 651-2, adopted June 26, 1996). which directed its staff to communicate with parents when they learn of serious risks to their children, such as pregnancy, drug use or threats of suicide. They did so out of respect for parental authority, concern for the wellbeing of students and fear of legal liability (for harm to teenage students that a parent might have been able to prevent had school personnel not kept knowledge of the risk from a mother and father). The school board was advised by its staff that, to assure that this policy was followed, it could not utilize nurses provided by the health department who would be required by their agency to maintain the confidentiality of communications with minor children with respect to these serious situations. They instead hired nurses as school employees. HB173 would give our school system the opportunity to utilize health department nurses without having to be concerned that those nurses may not observe its family friendly policy.
We urge you to give a favorable report to HB173. Thank you.
