To Your Health

Cervical cancer vaccine: should parents know?

March

If a teenager can walk into a health clinic and ask for a round of birth control pills without her parents’ permission, should she also be able to ask for a round of Gardasil shots?

That question is at the center of a story today written by Cara Matthews from our Albany Bureau. The story talks about how Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale is sponsoring a legislation that would allow young women to get the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil without parental consent if they are under 18. To read the story, click HERE.

The vaccine protects women from the four most popular strains of the human papillomavirus, the most common sexually transmitted infection among women in the Lower Hudson Valley and across the country. The infection, commonly called HPV, can cause cervical cancer.

Some readers posted their thoughts at the bottom of Cara’s story disparaging Paulin’s efforts to make the vaccine available to women with their parents’ knowledge. Other comments show that readers are clearly opposed to Planned Parenthood offering any of their services without parental consent.

What do you think?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm by Candice Ferrette.
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One Response to “Cervical cancer vaccine: should parents know?”

Richard Tjoa March 27th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
If we don’t think that teenagers possess the… “mental capacity” to make “adult” decisions, what makes one think they’d have the “mental capacity” to be parents themselves (in 9 months)?

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