kerofish

I just spent quite literally all day attempting to obtain birth control pills. It was significantly harder than I thought it would be.
I’m sixteen. For the past two years, I’ve gotten my family planning services from the local health department. Access was never an issue; I was fortunate to have a consenting parent. It was free and no questions were asked about the fact that I was only fourteen.
But now I’m heading to college–I skipped a couple of grades. I moved to the capital city of my state, and one of my first tasks upon moving in was to transfer my care to the health department here.
My move had the unfortunate timing of taking place right as I needed another pap smear to get more pills. I started to bite my nails as I realized that I was on my last pack of pills. Between scheduling my appointment, getting the pap smear, transferring my medical records, and all of the other red tape, I was running out of time. But when I tried to tackle these obstacles, I was hit with another road block: Parental consent.
Parental consent? My parents live 150 miles away. How are they supposed to give written consent? More importantly, why the hell should they have to consent? I’m sixteen. I have reached the age of consent. My body is my business. (As an aside, no one seems to be able to answer me when I ...