Letters to the Editor
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Nope
As a woman who had an abortion as a teenager (without my parents' knowledge), I strongly disagree with Ms. So's stand on the issue. What about a teenager with anti-choice parents, who take extreme measures to prevent her terminating the pregnancy? By extreme measures, I don't mean violence. I mean any kind of coercion parents are capable of as controllers of the home, money, etc. To say that a teen still has the right to take the matter to court in order to proceed with her legal right to terminate is close to meaningless. I know that if my parents had been notified and if they had been dead-set against my abortion, I would not have had the strength or wherewithall to pursue legal avenues to assert my rights. I might have had a child far too young, as per the wishes of someone else, and had the power over my own destiny taken from me.
A minor rarely has the awareness, gumption, connections, and endurance to launch a court case to follow through on her desire to NOT bear a child too young in the face of staunch resistance from her guardians. But that she does not possess those things does not bolster the argument that she does not have the ability to know whether she's ready to have a baby. That's something a woman just knows. If she still "knows" after braving the protesters outside the clinic, going through the mandated counseling, and being informed of all the options by trained workers, then she knows. She knows. Leave her alone.