Scant Drop Seen in Abortion Rate if Parents Are Told
For all the passions they generate, laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion do not appear to have produced the sharp drop in teenage abortion rates that some advocates hoped for, an analysis by The New York Times shows.
The analysis, which looked at six states that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade and is believed to be the first study to include data from years after 1999, found instead a scattering of divergent trends.
Supporters of the laws say they promote better decision-making and reduce teenage abortions; opponents say they chip away at abortion rights and endanger young lives by exposing them to potentially violent reaction from some parents.
But some workers and doctors at abortion clinics said that the laws had little connection with the real lives of most teenagers, and that they more often saw parents pressing their daughters to have abortions than trying to stop them. And many teenagers say they never considered hiding their pregnancies or abortion plans from their mothers.
OK, that cartoon is pretty dumb
Does anyone expect reality, scientific study or measured analysis to affect the superstitious drivel driving political decisions like this? You may as well wait for the mountain to come to Mohammed.
Legalizing abortion actually was a major cause for overall crime reduction in the United States in the last few years. Mothers who would have been forced to have their babies if abortion was still illegal would have raised their children without love thereby raising bad children whom have a much higher potential of committing crime in their adolescence which would have been around the 90’s (abortion legalized ’73).
Legalizing abortion has made homocide rates drop and has made our society a safer one.
“they more often saw parents pressing their daughters to have abortions than trying to stop them. And many teenagers say they never considered hiding their pregnancies or abortion plans from their mothers.”
As it should be. All people are saying is a minor’s parents need to be involved. Seems like most kids are smarter than the adults fighting against these laws. Good for them.
“All people are saying is a minor’s parents need to be involved”
sounds like sage advice, but actually what you are saying is: “it should be illegal for a minor’s parent’s not to be involved.”
it’s perfectly within your rights to pursue that legislative agenda in our modern democracy.
just please don’t act like you are not advocating inserting the american legal system into the american family, making laws to determine how families must interact with one another.
Todd……what cave have you been sleeping in for the last 40 years……the legal system is so deeply involved in the decisions and lives of American families the lawyers and the Judges have their own spot at the dinner table in American homes.
Americans love to litigate, especially in the last 25 years or so, they invite the law into their lives on a daily basis, not realizing that doing so is like in the old horror movies, where if you invited a vampire into your home they could suck you dry.
The results of this study don’t surprise me. But, at the same time I view it with a wary eye, it is after all from the New York Times, a very vocal opponate of Parental Notifacation Laws.
So what’s the objection to parental notification laws then? It’s pretty strange that people want to insist on vaccinations, sometimes without even notifying the parents, but for some reason have a problem with letting parents act as parents.
Do you trust the New York Times to conduct an unbiased scientific study on this subject?
Please….
You don’t think the Times has an agenda?
Then I have some beach property in AZ that I’m selling please email me about it…the price in unbelievable!
Yes…I am saying that we should legislate that parents should be involved in this process!!!!
A doctor can’t give an aspirin with out a signed consent form, but you are a proponent of an invasive and dangerous (spiritually, physically and psychologically) surgical proceedure without parental consent?
Nuts…Completely Nuts…