Reproductive Equity Now Testifies Against Restricting Minors’ Access to Abortion Care

WATCH: Interim Co-Executive Director Claire Teylouni testifies at CT Joint Judiciary Committee against parental notification proposal for accessing abortion care

HARTFORD (March 3, 2025) – Yesterday, Reproductive Equity Now’s Interim Co-Executive Director, Claire Teylouni, testified in front of the Connecticut Joint Judiciary Committee in opposition to Restricting Minors’ Access to Abortion Care (H.B. 5309), legislation that would limit young people’s autonomy and ability to access pregnancy-related care by requiring parental notification for abortion care. You can watch Teylouni deliver her testimony before the committee HERE or read, as prepared for delivery, below. 

Oral Testimony

March 2, 2026

Reproductive Equity Now Testimony Against Restricting Minors’ Access to Abortion Care

Claire Teylouni, Interim Co-Executive Director

Connecticut Joint Committee on Judiciary

*as prepared for delivery*

Honorable Chairs, Ranking members, and esteemed members of the Judiciary Committee, my name is Claire Teylouni, and I am here on behalf of Reproductive Equity Now. Thank you for the opportunity to voice my opposition to H.B. 5309. 

Reproductive Equity Now works in Connecticut and across New England to make equitable access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care a reality for all people, including young people, without barriers. 

Connecticut has long been committed to reproductive health, rights, and justice, having codified the rights secured under Roe v. Wade into our state statutes over thirty years ago. In that time, Connecticut has always stood for the simple and powerful principle that every person deserves the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions with dignity, privacy, and autonomy. And, in ensuring that young people access comprehensive counseling from a licensed professional about their pregnancy options, the state has long recognized that young people may not have a parent or a trusted adult with whom they can have these safe conversations. 

Because Reproductive Equity Now works across New England, I wanted to spend my time this morning/afternoon illustrating the harms of the judicial bypass system for minors to access abortion care that we see in practice in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, where parental consent is required for young people aged 15 and younger, a judicial bypass (the option if parental consent cannot be obtained) has not been denied in almost 40 years. This does not suggest that the process is easy. To the contrary, it shows that judges, by and large, find young people capable of making informed decisions about their pregnancies and that this process is arduous and unnecessarily burdensome. The judicial bypass process significantly delays access to care. Of young people who navigated the judicial bypass process from 2010 to 2016 in Massachusetts, an average experienced a delay in accessing an abortion by nearly 15 days, and one in five experienced a delay of 21 days or more. 

Young people who use the judicial bypass system are disproportionately young people of color and young people with low incomes. 

These delays force young people to access abortion care later, increasing the cost of abortion care and limiting their options, especially if their access to care is delayed so as to make them ineligible for medication abortion.

At its core, H.B. 5309 asks the General Assembly to confront whether it trusts young people. Connecticut law already recognizes that minors can consent to a wide range of health care services, and just last year, this body reaffirmed that minors can consent to their own contraceptive care and other pregnancy-related care. 

H.B. 5309 represents a sharp and troubling departure from this recognition and Connecticut’s strong legacy. 

The majority of young people seeking abortion care do involve their parents - regardless of whether the law requires it. But legislation cannot manufacture healthy family relationships. It can, however, create harm when it assumes that every family is safe. The judicial bypass process proposed in this bill suggests the opposite of trusting young people. Requiring them to appear before a judge to justify their health care decisions sends a clear message: that their judgment is insufficient and their right to bodily autonomy is conditional and must be justified. 

We urge you to prioritize equitable access to care for young people, and respectfully urge you to reject H.B. 5309. Thank you.

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