Word: pregnants
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...issue, like that of parental involvement, is not so simple. The victim of rape or incest is often herself an innocent child in need of saving. Pamela (a pseudonym) was a seventh-grader in Washington when she was allegedly raped by her stepfather. When her mother discovered she was pregnant, she took her to a Planned Parenthood clinic just ten blocks from the White House to arrange an abortion. "She was pitiful," recalls clinic director Mary Vandenbroucke, who had to break the news that Medicaid would not pay the $400 cost of an abortion, even for a case like Pamela...
Better than a parent's control over abortion would be a world in which children too young to understand the power of sex did not engage in it, and one in which those unprepared to be pregnant did not become so. Since long before Juliet met Romeo, adults have been trying to convince adolescents barely able to decide what to wear in the morning that they are not mature enough to manage the complicated and overwhelming feelings that come with a sexual relationship. But for just as long, teenagers have been unpersuaded. Surveys show that at least half the young...
...when sex moves from the private to the open and a teenager is pregnant, children who normally turn to a parent in a time of trouble will usually do so whether or not there is a law requiring it and whether or not they have been talking about sex. In Massachusetts, which requires teens to obtain the permission of both parents or of a judge, about 75% of the girls who have abortions share the decision with their parents. Levels of parental involvement are equally high in neighboring Connecticut and New Hampshire, where such consent is not required...
...unlikely that politicians could write laws to improve communications in unhappy families, or keep teenagers from becoming pregnant, or provide wise and caring parents when they do. Still, making the argument against parental involvement is like arguing for the right to burn the American flag -- politically, it is a tough case no matter how right the reasoning. Now that the Supreme Court has put its stamp of approval on some notification laws, the two sides head back to the legislatures. Says Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL): "On the heels of this week...
...anomaly in the movement to require a parent's consent to an abortion is that there is no law requiring parental approval of staying pregnant and bearing a child, with its life-changing, lifelong consequences. There are compelling health and safety arguments against pregnancy: teenage girls are 24 times as likely to die of childbirth as of a first-trimester abortion, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. While having a child is one part of the full and complex life of a woman, it often turns out to be the % defining, and confining, fact of a teenager's existence. Eight...