Fear of pregnancy: One teen's story in post-Roe America
Juliet was hanging out with her aunt and relaxing, floating in a lake in Georgia last spring when her aunt brought up birth control.
Juliet is 15, in ninth grade, and she's got a lot going on. She's learning to drive, plays tennis, is serious about flute in marching band, and she's taking two AP classes. She's also totally indifferent to dating and having sex. "I just don't think it's interesting," she says.
The conversation with her aunt made her realize there were "a bunch of different types of birth control that I didn't know existed," Juliet says. (NPR is only using her first name to protect her privacy as a minor talking about her sexual health.)
She'd had sex ed in school – in Georgia, it's not required to be comprehensive, and must emphasize abstinence before marriage. She says she didn't learn much about birth control options beyond the pill.
Then, in late June 2022, a few weeks after that conversation was overturned by the Supreme Court. Georgia passed a trigger law in 2019, which is now in effect and , before many people learn they are pregnant. There is an exception for rape, but only with a police report.
