Will Florida Teens With Sexually Transmitted Diseases Have To Tell Their Parents Before They Can Get Treatment?

These bills would require exactly that—and a lot more.

In an ideal world, teenagers would not be engaging in risky sexual activity and would not be catching sexually transmitted infections (STIs). But we do not live in an ideal world. And young people are often dumb. The best we can hope for is that when some young people make bad decisions, these will not result in dire or lifelong consequences.

If, say, some 16-year-old has unprotected sex and catches chlamydia, we should hope that the teen will get treated—even if that means telling a parent what is going on. But, is this likely? Given an option between telling a parent they're sexually active and simply shutting up and hoping for the best, it doesn't seem unreasonable to worry that teens may choose the latter.

That's why it's probably a good idea not to condition STI treatment on parental consent. You risk stopping young people from seeking testing and treatment in the first place.

But Americans—especially in states like Florida and Texas—seem to be in the midst of a panic about parental approval. And it doesn't seem to hinge so much on stopping risky or dangerous behavior as giving parents ultimate control over all aspects of their children's lives, even when these children are adolescents or on the cusp of adulthood. We want parents to have to approve the books and ideas they're exposed to in school, the apps they can download, and the social media platforms they join.

Now, Florida wants to require parental consent before a minor can be treated for an STI.

STI Treatment Consent: What About Minors' Rights?

Notably, no one seems to even pretend that this is about helping minors—some of whom surely have good reason not to tell their parents if they're sexually active and may refrain from treatment rather than doing so.

No, proponents of the bill keep talking about parental rights.

Of course, rights are important, especially when it comes to areas where the state is trying to substitute its judgment for that of parents.

But children also have rights and should be granted increasing autonomy in exercising these rights as they approach adulthood. And consenting to sensitive but nonrisky medical treatment to stop dangerous complications and further spreading of disease seems like a prime area for allowing older minors some autonomy.

Florida lawmakers do not see it this way, apparently. A pair of bills—House Bill 1505 and Senate Bill 1288—that would ban minors getting treated for STIs without parental consent "have cleared all of their committee stops in both chambers," the Florida Phoenix reports.

If this becomes law, Florida would become the first state to deny minors the right to consent to STI services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Requiring Consent for Mental Health Care, Substance Abuse Treatment, and School Surveys

The House version of the bill would also let parents opt kids of all ages out of taking not just mental health surveys or health screenings at school but any survey or questionnaire that may reveal things such as political beliefs, religious beliefs, "sexual behavior or attitudes," or "critical appraisals" of any family member.

It would remove language allowing doctors to provide contraceptive services to minors without their parent's consent when the minor would, "in the opinion of the physician, suffer probably health hazards if such services are not provided."

And it would remove language allowing minors to "voluntarily apply for and obtain substance abuse treatment" on their own.

The bill would furthermore remove language allowing doctors to treat minors "seeking outpatient crisis intervention services" without parental consent. And it would repeal a section of Florida code that says minors ages 13 or above who are experiencing "emotional crisis" can "request, consent to, and receive mental health diagnostic and evaluative services" or "outpatient crisis intervention services including individual psychotherapy, group therapy, counseling, or other forms of verbal therapy provided by a licensed mental health professional."

Again, one hopes kids would be able to talk to their parents about mental health problems or substance abuse issues, and that parents would respond by helping them get treatment and not with extreme forms of punishment. But in reality, not all parents are going to respond well in such situations. And we should hope that kids might seek help even when they don't want to get a parent involved or when a parent has refused to let them seek outside help.

This isn't all bad—the bits about allowing parents to opt kids out of health screenings and various surveys could stop schools from intruding in things they have no business intruding in. After all, students themselves probably are not allowed to opt out of such screenings and surveys, so at least giving their parents that option is good. And it's not like a kid with trouble at home couldn't talk to teachers or administrators without the survey. (Though I can also see enforcement of this plank going too far and being used to try and limit classroom discussions or assignments in weird ways, as Florida seems wont to do.)

There's also a bit about using biofeedback devices on kids outside of a health care facility. To the extent that this is a thing that's actually happening or could happen, requiring parental consent doesn't seem like a bad idea here.

But overall, the Florida bills seem like yet another sign of lawmakers and advocates taking parental rights too far. We're moving beyond protecting parents from unfair and unwarranted governmental incursions on their authority and starting to use the phrase to deny even basic bodily autonomy and decision making rights to anyone under 18.

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More Sex & Tech News

When Facebook considered Dropbox to be its competition. A look at the government's antitrust trial against Facebook parent company Meta shows how silly authorities' obsession with stopping tech "monopolies" is. The trial has been a tour de force through the rapidly shifting social media and app landscape of the past 15 years—and the sort of dynamism that renders it absurd to think we need federal prosecutors to stop technology from staying static. (I delved into this idea at length in a 2023 Reason cover story, "Competition, Not Antitrust, Is Humbling the Tech Giants").

"The testimony has underscored the government's steep challenge in bringing a case, Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, against a fast-moving modern tech giant," notes The New York Times:

By the time the five-year-old lawsuit reached trial last week, Silicon Valley had moved on from battling over social networking to battling over artificial intelligence, quantum computing and driverless cars — so much so that it was sometimes hard to relate to what was discussed in court.

Social media has evolved, too. At the trial, government lawyers have tried to define Meta's social networking market as one that is about connecting with friends and family. That's because more than a decade ago, Facebook had a distinct advantage with its "friend graph," which is the group of friends, family and personal connections a user is linked with on the social network. That graph made it more difficult for users to pack up and easily go elsewhere.

But a decade is a long time in internet years, and somewhere along the way, social media became less about social and more about media. People now post fewer status updates and photos. Scrolling through apps is less about sharing with friends and more about letting strangers entertain you.

Essentially, the government is bringing a case against a company that no longer exists for dominating a tech landscape that no longer exists.

The Gen Z lifestyle subsidy? "In the 2010s, Millennials got cheap Ubers. Today's young people are getting free SuperGrok," notes The Atlantic. "It's reminiscent of the 2010s, when a generation of start-ups fought to win users over by offering cheap access to their services."

Babies by Trump? The White House is reportedly considering menstrual education as one way to boost U.S. fertility rates.

European Union cracks down on U.S. tech companies. "The European Commission issued the first fines under its Digital Markets Act on Wednesday, slapping tech giants Apple and Meta with penalties for breaching the EU's new digital rulebook," reports Politico. "Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation's rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its 'pay or consent' advertising model, which requires that European Union users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram."

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Conservative Political Action Conference | 2016 (ENB/Reason)