Adolescent Pregnancy Project
About the Adolescent Pregnancy Project
In 2006 in North Carolina more than 6500 girls and young women, aged ten through 17, became pregnant and 74 percent of them gave birth. Although they, their parents, and other adults responsible for them confront difficult legal questions, the law relevant to the situation may be hard to locate or interpret. For example, may a person under 18 act as a parent, obtain or refuse an abortion, place a child for adoption, marry, leave school or insist on staying? May she seek her own health care? What are her partner's and their families' responsibilities and rights?
The Adolescent Pregnancy Project offers information on North Carolina law and resources to pregnant and parenting adolescents and those who care for them. It consists of legal guides accompanied by resource lists, one each for health providers, social services employees, school employees, the parents of pregnant
and parenting adolescents, and adolescents themselves.
The project's goals are listed below:
- Help adolescents to understand their legal choices
- Ensure that adolescents, while pregnant or parenting, have access to health care, education, and social services
- Help adults recognize that teens are sometimes lawful decision makers
- Help caregivers not overlook the possibility of abuse, neglect or coercive sexual relationships
- Clarify the role of adult advisors--either family members or professionals--and provide resources for them
The project is funded by the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; the Karl and Anna Ginter Foundation and the Mary Norris Preyer Fund. Anne Dellinger and Arlene M. Davis are co-directors of the project.