Simply put, Latina minors living in the United States do not have reproductive and privacy rights. This group of minors are deprived of this rights as a result of their status as minors, race, gender, and low socioeconomic standing. Society presumes that they lack the character that justifies recognizing these rights in the first place, so Latinas immediately become prey of state legislation. Latina teenagers are disproportionately face poverty, pregnancy, cervical cancer, and AIDS. They lack health insurance and face cultural barriers that impede them from achieving any reproductive and sexual autonomy. Their only option is to turn to the states, which fail them also.
In Maher v. Roe , Harris v. McRae , and Beal v. Doe , the Supreme Court implies that poor women are indigent by their own fault, rejecting any responsibility that states may have contributed to in their indigence. The Court consistently undermines the situation poor Latinas face by reasoning that although the government may not place obstacles in the path of a woman’s exercise of her freedom of choice, it need not remove those not of its own creation.
I. SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ISSUES LATINAS FACE
A. Poor Sexual and Reproductive Health
i. Teen Pregnancy, Contraceptives, Abortion, and Consequences
In the United States, teen pregnancy rates have been steadily declining, however, teen pregnancy rate for Latinas has not made declined as much as it has for teens of other races in the last decade. In fact, Latinas have highest teen birth rate. In 2016, their birth rate was 31.9 births per 1,000 female teens, in comparison to the national average of 20.3 per 1000. Sadly, forty-one percent of them will drop out of high school due to pregnancy, and as a result, will live in poverty and will more likely be a single parent.
In general, the falling pregnancy rate is a result of more teens using contraception. Still, many fail to use the most effective methods or use them incorrectly or inconsistently, resulting in ill-timed or unwanted pregnancies. Only half of Latinas use any contraception, compared to white females of the same age. This becomes troubling since forty-one percent of Latinas aged fifteen to nineteen report they have had sexual intercourse at least once. The truth is that young Latinas continue to face barriers in continuously accessing contraception that is affordable and available to them. As a result, unintended pregnancy among them is twice the rate of their white peers.
Nevertheless, even informed teenagers have trouble accessing birth control. Latinas have cited prescription contraceptive cost as preventing its consistent use. Some don’t know where to find contraception, are afraid to ask parents for help in accessing contraception, others do not know of its existence. Being underage, Latina teenagers also face barriers imposed by state legislatures. Half of states nationwide allow minors to receive contraceptive services under limited circumstances only. Unfortunately, these cases lead Latina teens to seek abortion care, with a quarter of abortion patients being Latinas, twelve percent being between the ages of fifteen and nineteen.
ii. STDs Epidemic and Other Reproductive Health Concerns Latinas Face.
Latinas are exposed to several other reproductive health challenges that are life-threatening. Recently, HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly among Latina in the United States. In 2013, the rate of HIV infection among Latina teens and women was triple that of their white counterparts. Latinas also account for sixteen percent of new AIDS cases among all racial and ethnic groups of women. The AIDS case rate is six times higher among Latinas than for white women. Additionally, Latina teens have a higher infection rate of syphilis, gonorrhea, and Chlamydia than white women.
Another health concern is the high rate of deadly cancers among Latinas. Cervical cancer remains a treatable and preventable disease, yet in 2015, 2,000 Latinas in the United States were expected to receive cervical cancer diagnosis and 200 were expected to die from it. Cervical cancer particularly affects Mexican and Puerto Rican Latinas double the rate of white women. When detected early, the chance of treating cervical cancer is very high, but Latinas are more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage, largely because of the lack of education they receive about the importance of a pap smear. Their access to pap smears, among other important health screenings, is limited due to their lack of insurance, low-income, age and language barriers.
B. Poverty as a Result
i. From High-School Dropout to Low Wage Jobs to Poverty.
According to the National Women’s Law Center, ninety-eight percent of Latinas say that they want to graduate from college and a third admit that is unlikely. In fact, an appalling forty-one percent of Latina girls will not graduate from high school. So much is to blame for these statistics like, lack of English fluency, discrimination, ethnic stereotyping, limited parental involvement, low income status, and poor school preparation. These numbers become worse due to their high teen pregnancy rate. In 2010, the National Conference on State Legislatures found that thirty-six percent of Latinas who dropped out of high school did so as a result of pregnancy. This was six percent higher than all female dropouts combined. After dropping out and pregnancy, most of the barriers holding Latinas back are poverty related.
With no education, the Latina teenager will be faced with lack of opportunity in the job market. She will make fifty-six cents for every dollar earned by her white, male counterpart, putting her at the bottom of her gender’s pay gap. In 2011, sixteen percent of Latinas compared to eight percent of white women, worked full-time but earned wages that put them below the poverty line. Further, pregnancy Latinas who drop out of high are more likely to be a single parent. Fifty-three percent of all births to Latinas in 2013 were to single women. For single-parent Latinas minimal education combined with low wages results in slim prospects of breaking out of the cycle of poverty. Without early intervention, it is more than likely the cycle will be never-ending.
All single-mothers, including Latinas, have two or more full-time jobs, working for money and raising their children. With no money or time, they cannot hire on help for childcare. Generally, single Latina moms with no education and low wage jobs, do not receive child support, or not enough for expenses. Without parental involvement in education, one on on parent attention, and low income, it is likely that Latinas’ children will follow their mother’s economic destiny.
ii. Latinas and Health
Latinas have the highest uninsured rates of any group in the United States, since they tend to be disproportionately poor and copays are unaffordable for them. The Guttmacher Institute found that fifty percent of young women, including Latinas, said there had been a time when the cost for a contraceptive prescription prevented them from using it consistently. Poor women are four times more likely to have an unintended pregnancy than those who have more resources, due in large part to lack of access to reproductive care and contraception.
II. LATINA YOUTH DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED BY LACK OF INFORMATION OF SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
A. Culture as a Barrier
A silent threat to young Latinas is the lack of information on reproductive and sexual health they receive at home. Traditional beliefs about sexuality in the Latino community influence younger generations heavily. Of course these ideas are held onto stronger by older generations than by younger ones influenced by American culture. Despite this, the huge emphasis that Latinos place on religion, morals, family and honoring parents and elders still affects younger generations. These cultural influences dictate the way Latina teenagers deal with certain topics like sex and reproductive health.
Family and gender roles are vital in the Latino culture. Men are recognized as the head of the household, while women take a passive and submissive caretaker role. “Machismo,” a term used to describe traditional masculine behavior and values, emphasizes the importance of men’s strength, control, and dominance over women. Machismo is often correlated to the traditional Latin view that a man should do all that he can to protect the women in his family. Latinas, on the other hand, tend to focus on house chores and maternity, often putting family needs above their own personal goals. Often, mothers stay at home, while the husband works outside of home. Many studies have shown that in comparison to other racial groups, young Latinas desire to start a family earlier and have multiple children.
Latina teenagers are also likely to grow up in a religious household. Although younger generations tend to be less religious, to most Latinos, religion is more than a practice as it is embedded within social norms, routines and traditional views. Most religious Latinos in the U.S. are Catholic, a religion that remains conservative with issues of sexual activity and abstinence. Many Catholics believe in the importance of waiting to have sex after marriage, sex being solely between man and woman, and the prohibition of birth control and condoms. Part of feminism in Latino culture includes the view that preserving a woman’s virginity is highly respected and even required. In fact, many Latinas look up to the Virgin Mary as a model of what women should aspire to become, pure and holy.
For these reasons, Latinas do not discuss sex out of nervousness, discomfort and fear of being labeled as promiscuous or offensive. In fact, studies show that Latino families avoid any discussion relating to sex. Keeping sex as a topic of taboo, Latina teenagers turn to friends, school peers, or keep to themselves with questions of sex and reproductive health. Ultimately, their lack of information or misinformation from others is highly dangerous. Coupled with poverty and lack of health care, lack of information is a cause for the high rates of unintended pregnancies, STDs, and cervical cancer with Latinas.
B. Sexual Education in Schools
i. Abstinence-Only Education
Since 1981, the federal government has funded abstinence programs in public schools and community organizations. Funding for the programs began as part of welfare reform efforts under the Clinton Administration. Over the past two decades, about $2 billion has been spent on abstinence-based education. Recently, the Trump Administration has cut more than $200 million in federal funds for teen pregnancy prevention programs , while extending millions to programs focusing solely on Abstinence-only education. Much of these programs contain guidelines that are scientifically unproven and ideologically driven. Funding for Abastinence-only programs tend to go to schools that are predominantly minority and since much of the legislation on sex education allocates funding in proportion to the amount of children in each state that are low income. For this reason, Latinas’ disparities in access of reproductive health information intensifies since they are more likely to receive abstinence-only education and will be negatively affected by it.
Usually, abstinence-only programs censor information about contraception and condoms as prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unintended pregnancy. Premarital sexual relationships are taught within these programs to be psychologically and physically harmful. Very few abstinence-only programs discuss STDs, but only in the context of abstaining from sex, disregarding any other methods of protection against STDs. Contraception is touched lightly in, but in a negative tone describing how its methods fail.
As a method of pregnancy and STDs prevention, abstinence-only programs ignore other scientifically and medically proven methods, while depriving students from crucial information on making healthy choices. Presently, most of the sex education nationwide follows this model, indicating that these programs are the only formal education regarding sexual and reproductive information to which many students will ever have access to.
1. Abstinence-Only Education Provides Misleading and Inaccurate Information.
During an investigation of the content of federally funded abstinence-only programs it was revealed that most of the information taught by abstinence-only programs are misleading. According to the report, almost ninety percent of the curricula “false, misleading, or distorted information,” regarding STD transmission and infection rates, abortion, condoms and their effectiveness, and human genetics. Most of the false information centers around the effectiveness of contraception, HIV, and the risks and aftermath of abortion.
Programs also promote exaggerated failure rates of condoms as an effective means of preventing pregnancy, HIV, and STDs, or in the alternative fail to instruct teenage students on its proper use of contraception. This failure to provide truthful information about condoms and other birth control only worsens the disparities in Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), teen pregnancy, and abortions among Latina teens, leaving them in a worse position than had the government declined to fund any form of sex education. Misinformation about condom usage in particular, harms Latinas especially when the AIDS rates among Latinas is nearly seven times that of their white peers.
Many widely used abstinence-only curricula also contain heavy anti-abortion bias and misinformation. One program states that five to ten percent of women who have abortions become sterile. The curriculum also teaches risks that generally do not occur after abortions are performed, such as premature births, mental retardation in children, or ectopic pregnancies. Some abstinence-only curricula incorporate religious beliefs about fetuses being people as a scientific fact. The FACTS program depicts six to ten day old embryos as “babies,” and describes them as being able to “snuggle into” the uterus. Another program demands teachers play a video in class about a woman who has an abortion and regrets her choice, followed by a discussion on the harms of abortion.
2. Abstinence-Only Promotes Negative Stereotypes Detrimental to Latinas.
Abstinence education programs promote damaging stereotypes that reinforce sexual inequality and contribute to sexual violence towards women. Generally, abstinence-only curricula portray girls as naturally chaste and boys constantly struggling to control their sexuality and hormones. These stereotypes repeatedly undermine female sexual decision-making and achievement by raising ancient myths. One curriculum teaches students that “women gauge their happiness and success by their relationships,” while “men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.” Girls are made out to be unmotivated and dependent, while boys are go-getters and overachieving. By promoting dangerous sex and gender stereotypes, abstinence education insinuates that boys’ sex drives are uncontrollable and girls need to be the “gatekeepers of chastity,” removing male responsibility for any acts of harassment or assault, while shifting the blame on girls. In fact, these programs fail to meaningfully discuss rape, sexual violence, and consent, issues that are so prevalent today with the “Me Too” movement.
Many of the programs also contain racist and sexist stereotypes about minority girls. For instance, “The Choice Game” has two versions that are shown to students, one where ninety-five percent of the featured students are white, and another where about eighty percent of the students are Latinas and African American. The former shows minority girls as being sexually aggressive and drug users. Instead of debunking these myths, the program highlights them within the curricula. These stereotypes are particularly harmful to Latinas. Studies measuring female empowerment have found that Latinas are more likely to accept traditional gender roles, including machismo attitudes that tend to undervalue women’s self-sufficiency and define women as maternal and submissive. Moreover, abstinence-only programs emphasize the harms of sex and pregnancy outside of marriage, stigmatizing Latina teens, who are more likely to come from a single-parent household and to become a single parent themselves.