Bill helps teen moms prevent repeats
It would allow access to contraceptives without parental consent.
Twelve years after finding herself pregnant with a second child at age 14, Mayra Montoya has added her support to a Texas House bill that is intended to help teen mothers from repeating her youthful mistakes.
In the state with the nation’s highest rate of repeat teen pregnancies, House Bill 1373 would give unmarried teen mothers access to prescription contraceptives without parental consent.
It’s a policy that the bill’s Republican author, Rep. Sarah Davis from the Houston area, says would help break the cycle of repeat pregnancies, aiding thousands of young women while cutting the state’s Medicaid costs.
Not all fellow Republicans agree with Davis’ proposed solution, however, and time is running short for HB 1373 in the dwindling days of the legislative session.
To help build support for Davis’ bill, Montoya drove from her home in New Braunfels to tell her story during a March hearing at the Capitol. Her mother, she recalled, wouldn’t give her permission to buy birth control after her first child was born, and she became pregnant again within six weeks, not knowing it could happen so soon after giving birth.
“You feel so helpless. You have this newborn that you have to take care of, that you’re responsible for, but you can’t even make decisions for yourself,” Montoya told the American-Statesman in a recent interview. “It blows my mind.”
Texas and Utah are the only states that require single mothers younger than 18 to have parental consent for contraceptives, according to the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Married teenagers, however, don’t need parental consent, and “that doesn’t seem fair to me at all,” Montoya said. “Why would somebody who is married have more rights over their body than someone who isn’t? We’re all women. We should have the same rights.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 22 percent of pregnant Texans under age 18 are having a second, third or fourth child — the worst rate in the nation and far higher than the 10 percent in the state with the lowest rate, New Hampshire.
“Repeat teen pregnancies doom both teen mothers and their children to a life of poverty,” Davis told the House State Affairs Committee during a late March hearing on her bill.
“Sixty percent of teen moms ultimately drop out, 2 percent obtain a college degree by age 30. Children of teen moms are three times more likely to become teen parents themselves,” Davis said. “Despite these breathtaking statistics, current law perpetuates repeat teen pregnancies because it deprives teen moms from making a responsible health care decision.”
Because many teen mothers live in poverty, Medicaid
Texas and Utah are the only states that require single mothers younger than 18 to have parental consent for contraceptives, according to the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
frequently pays the cost of subsequent births, adding millions of dollars in taxpayer costs, she said.
Davis’ bill gained a key ally when the committee’s chairman, Rep. Byron Cook, R-Corsicana, confronted the only person who spoke against the bill during the hearing — Nicole Hudgens of Texas Values, a Christian public policy advocacy group based in Austin.
Birth control methods carry various levels of risk, Hudgens told the committee, “and minors should not take medical risks without parental supervision.”
Cook challenged Texas Values to provide “some positive solutions to how we take care of these girls.”
“You’re good at bringing us what you’re against,” he said. “In the meantime, these girls are struggling.”
Other Republicans on the committee, however, were leery of the bill. Although Davis was able to persuade Reps. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Ken King, R-Canadian, to join Cook in support, committee approval didn’t come until last week, placing HB 1373 into the crush of legislation needing a House vote by midnight Thursday to survive and be sent to the Senate.
Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo was among three committee Republicans to oppose Davis’ bill.
“Even if the teenager, who is still a minor, has had a child, her parents should still be involved in the decision,” Smithee said after the vote. “I understand not all parents are the best parents in the world, but lot of them are trying to be good parents, and they need to be involved.”
Montoya said she believed HB 1373 would improve the lives of many teenagers.
“Luckily, I was able to get through it. I made something of myself. I know so many girls who were in the same position. They weren’t able to finish high school or go to college because they had two children before age 18,” she said. “Bringing another child into the world before we’re even ready to take care of the first one? That makes it impossible.”