Confidential Health Services for Teens

It is the policy of Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado to ensure that adolescents have access to accurate information about human sexuality and to a full range of reproductive health care services. While PPVC believes adolescents should be encouraged, whenever possible, to involve their parents or guardians in their reproductive decision-making, PPVC opposes restrictions on adolescents’ access to confidential reproductive health care services received through private health care providers. Furthermore, we support appropriate state level policies that provide personal health information confidentiality protections for youth when seeking reproductive health services. The Parental Notification Act, passed by the Colorado Legislature in 2003 (HB03-1214), mandates that if a woman under the age of 18 becomes pregnant and chooses to terminate her pregnancy, the health care provider must notify her parent or guardian 48 hours before she can have an abortion. PPVC and our health provider arm, PPRM, recognizes and abides by the Parental Notification Act, but maintains its opposition to the law and other, similar efforts to undermine the privacy rights and needs of women of all ages in Colorado.