Following new Idaho law, doctors delayed the pelvic exam of a pregnant 13-year-old girl because they couldn’t locate her homeless mother

[Mom-to-be Aleah], 36 weeks pregnant, was having mild but frequent contractions…. In most cases, physician Caitlin Gustafson would have begun a pelvic exam to determine whether labor had started. This time, she called the hospital’s lawyers.

[U]nder a new Idaho law requiring parental consent for nearly all minors’ health care, Gustafson could be sued for treating her because the girl had been brought in by her great-aunt.

What followed were more than two frantic hours of trying to contact Aleah’s mother, who was living in a car, and her grandmother, who was the teen’s legal guardian. The grandmother finally gave verbal consent for the exam — from the Boise-area jail where she was incarcerated on drug charges.

Critics say the law — which also grants parents access to minors’ health records, doing away with confidentiality that providers and teen advocates call crucial — ignores the reality that parents aren’t always present or trustworthy. Three months after its implementation, they contend it is hindering adolescents’ ability to access counseling, limiting evidence collection in sexual assault cases, and causing schools to seek parental permission to treat scrapes with ice packs and Band-Aids.

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