Should parents be allowed to force their daughter to have an abortion?

[liontamer]

Parents should ultimately decide what's best for their children. Pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child are generally not in the best interest of a fifteen year old girl. Shouldn't parents (who would be in charge of prenatal care, postpartum care, and providing support for the child at least partially) get the final say?

[ET Awful]

1. No.

Nobody should be allowed to "force" anyone to have an abortion.

[MindPilot]

2. Well the anti-choice people say

the parents should be able to force the child to have the baby. I see no reason why the reverse should not apply.

On Edit: If you are going to give a fifteen year old the ability to be a parent, then they should also be able to vote, drive, enter into contracts, buy alcohol, be drafted, etc, etc.

[REP]

7. Nobody "Gives" The Ability to Gestate To Another

Fertility and the ability to gestate is not a right granted by a regulating body, as voting, driving, buying alcohol, entering intro contracts, etc are. No law can be passed that stop anyone from entering puberty and becoming able to reproduce.

As for what antiabortnoids say: pay it no mind. Mandating abortion is as repugnant as banning it.

[Iris]

17. Absolutely. What the pro-lifers don't seem to get is if the gov't. can

force a woman to give birth, it can also go the other way as well.

[tocqueville]

3. absolutely not

and it should be the contrary. A girl under majority age should be able to have an abortion WITHOUT her parents permission, if she fears for the overall relation with her parents and truly understands that she is too young to be a mother or doesn't want the kid for other reasons.

In France, the girl has only to report to the school nurse. In most case it's solved by a day after pill, which is free on prescription.
But if it has to go to a regular abortion, the parents can't oppose.

[rebecca_herman]

4. No to both

If the girl really is completely against having an abortion, it will probably cause her severe trauma to force one upon her - just like forcing a girl to give birth when she is completely against it will probably cause severe trauma. So I don't think parents should be able to make either decision. Maybe a young girl can't make a perfect decision, but whatever happens will effect her far more than it will effect her parents, so better to let her, she will be the one living with the results.

[whitebear]

5. I always wondered why the parents have no say

or the father of the baby.

[REP]

6. Think Reeeeeeeal Hard

Why don't they have a say. Hm. Maybe because the pregnancy isn't happening in any other their bodies, and therefore, they don't get to make the decision? Could that possibly be the reason?

Oh, and by the way, until birth, there is no baby, as babies need to breathe air. Put a baby in a uterus and it would quickly suffocate. What's in the uterus of a pregnant woman (remember her?) is either a zygote, embryo or fetus.

[gollygee]

8. Because they don't get to decide if someone else's uterus

is going to be used for something or not.

[gollygee]

9. No

the decision of what to do with her uterus belongs only to her.

edited to add that it is a very good point you are making though.

[Scout]

10. No.

no forced abortion, no forced birth.
the only one who gets to decide is the one who is pregnant.

[iverglas]

11. well ...

Shouldn't parents (who would be in charge of prenatal care, postpartum care, and providing support for the child at least partially) get the final say?

Those particular considerations are totally irrelevant. Grandparents do not have a duty to rear their children's children, or to support the grandchildren. And even if they did, their potential liability simply doesn't give them authority to decide what another human being will do with his/her body or life in matters of such importance, any more than the fact that they are liable to support the girl herseof does. You know, right to liberty and all that? Parents may not sell their children into slavery, after all.

A man is potentially liable for the support of children. Doesn't give him authority to compel a woman to terminate a pregnancy.

Parents should ultimately decide what's best for their children. Pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a child are generally not in the best interest of a fifteen year old girl.

There, there is something worth considering. Although I wouldn't likely consider it in the case of a 15-yr-old, I would probably consider it in the case of, say, an 11-yr-old or 12-year-old. It happens.

Parents are supposed to make decisions in matters that affect their childrens lives and liberty, among other things, in the best interests of the children. They exercise the children's rights on the children's behalf. That's what it is their "right" as parents to do.

It is arguable that in many cases of young girls who are pregnant, it would be very difficult to see how it could possibly be in their best interests to continue the pregnancy.

Physically, for starters, pregnancy and delivery jeopardize their lives and well-being, and put them at much greater risk than adult women or older adolescents. In terms of emotional and social development, the immediate effects of both the pregnancy and parenthood would very likely be rather horrific.

And the long-term effects on a girl who had a child at a very young age could be rather devastating, if she did not have rather unusual resources available to her (e.g. childcare and funds for completing the kind of education that is needed to get a decent, secure job -- assuming, of course, that she would have been in a position to do so if she had not had a child).

Those really are things that parents properly consider. A parent would not likely agree to provide an 11-yr-old with breast implants or a shotgun, no matter how sad she was that she didn't have them. And parents often have surgery done on their young children to correct even physical problems that do not threaten their lives, without asking the kids' permission. So should parents of a young girl be bound by her wishes in this particular case, but not in others?

On the other side of the ledger, we have the effects on the girl of terminating her pregnancy against her wishes. Frankly, I don't think there's much to worry about there. And when balanced against the potentially serious effects of continuing the pregnancy, I think they pale.

This is likely something that should involve some oversight of the parents' decision, however. Any health care provider who got the impression that a young girl was subject to a decision to terminate her pregnancy, made by her parents against her wishes, ought to inquire into the situation, or refer the matter to an authority that could. Not only because the girl might be the victim of sexual abuse (she might not be abused at all), but because she might need someone to examine her best interests if it appeared that the parents were not acting in them.

[rebecca_herman]

12. I'm not sure they'd pale...

Let's suppose the parents who want to make their 11 year old have an abortion think a fetus/embryo is not a life yet.
But what if the 11 year old really DOES believe she is carrying a fully human baby? Even if abortion remains legal forever (which is what I strongly believe should be the case), there will always be people who see a fetus as a baby. People still have the right to believe the fetus to be a baby and if they feel that way an abortion shouldn't be forced on them. If the hypothetical girl does feel that way, won't she go through the rest of her life (assuming she does not change her opinion on the status of a fetus, I certainly haven't since I was pretty young and saw a picture of an embryo and wondered how the heck someone thought that was a baby) feeling as if her parents murdered her child? If the 11 year old was really going to die I would say saving her life is more important, but otherwise it is very cruel to force an abortion on her, just as forcing her to give birth would be cruel.

[iverglas]

13. well ...

But what if the 11 year old really DOES believe she is carrying a fully human baby?

And what if an 11-yr-old believes that the cancer in her eye is an angel from heaven?

Are we going to prevent the parents from having the child's cancer removed?

I really don't mean to be rude -- but is what an 11-yr-old believes about something like this really something that should be determining the course of the rest of her life?

The courts do face these difficult decisions occasionally. The child who does not want to have medical treatment -- maybe for loony religious reasons, maybe because they child has insight and reason and has decided that s/he simply does not want to be put through ordeals, even if it means death. Whether the child has *enough* insight and reason to make that decision when the results are irreversible and serious is always the question.

So: what if the 11-yr-old really believes what you say? (It's hard to phrase in a way that it makes sense: of course a fetus is "fully human", but it isn't a baby. Maybe we could just say that the 11-yr-old believes that terminating her pregnancy would be wrong, an issue that can't be settled by argument or reason.)

Well, as you say (with the necessary changes):

People still have the right to believe <terminating a pregnancy> to be <wrong>.

The child does indeed have the right to believe anything she wants. (That's almost a tautology; one can't force anyone to believe anything s/he doesn't want to believe. ;) )

But --

... if they feel that way an abortion shouldn't be forced on them - ?

Where do issues of competence come into it? If someone believes abortion is wrong in the same way s/he believes the devil is hiding in the closet -- as a result of delusional thinking that manifests itself in adherence to bizarre beliefs -- what then? What if a 6-yr-old believes it is wrong to euthanize the dog she was given for her birthday, but the parents know the dog is in severe intractable pain?

Do 11-yr-olds really have the knowledge and experience and reasoning skills to determine whether something as complex as this is "wrong"? Don't we abhor the anti-choice brigade's practice of inculcating such notions into their children's mind by showing them pictures of little aborted baby things? What basis does an 11-yr-old have for thinking that something that she can't possibly understand the complexities of is "wrong"?

Why would an 11-yr-old even have an opinion about this, if the opinion hadn't been stuffed into her head by her parents, her church, her school, or what she is told in society at large?

She can't even grasp the effects that a pregnancy and delivery are going to have on her (or anyone's) body, let alone the effects that parenthood will have on her (or anyone's) life. Children aren't little adults, and we do know quite a bit about the brains of children and adolescents and how they work. They jump off high places. They walk on railway tracks. They do things that are not in their best interests, because they just don't grasp the risks and possible consequences.

The *reasons* why children want or don't want to do something are sometimes a good thing to consider in deciding whether to prevent them from doing it or make them do it. Sometimes, they really aren't.

If the hypothetical girl does feel that way, won't she go through the rest of her life (assuming she does not change her opinion on the status of a fetus, I certainly haven't since I was pretty young and saw a picture of an embryo and wondered how the heck someone thought that was a baby) feeling as if her parents murdered her child?

Well, we do have one of those situations where there's no perfect solution ... kinda like the situation scads of women with unwanted pregnancies find themselves in every day, for sure.

Would she be better off thinking her parents are murderers, or giving birth at the age of 11? Would some sort of intervention, along with the maturing process, not likely solve the first problem more easily than anything can solve the second?

If she gives birth, she may become the mother of a child she'll never see again, if it is relinquished for adoption. And -- who gets to make that decision? If the parents decline to rear the child, and the girl wants to, who has to support her and her child then? I'm not saying that the rest of us ("the state") shouldn't do that, I'm just wondering how it would be in her best interests to become a stray in a group home with a kid at the age of 11 or 12. If the parents agree to continue rearing her, but not her child, what happens and who decides? And why is it better for someone else to decide that the child must be taken into the care of the state for adoption (as one might expect would happen) than to decide that her pregnancy should be terminated?

An 11-yr-old can't make a plan for how to deal with parenthood. And she has no resources to carry out any plan she might come up with. So her options may not be abortion vs. live happily ever after with my new baby who loves me. But she'll probably keep right on thinking that they are, if, for whatever reason, she's opposed to terminating the pregnancy.

She's a kid, that's what they do. The options aren't stay here on the railway bridge vs. jump off and break both my legs, if I'm lucky enough to survive. The options are stay here on the railway bridge vs. jump off and find out how good it feels and get some bruises and be acclaimed as the brave hero by all my friends.

To me, that's the question. What are the real options, and is it really more in the child's best interests to allow her to make a decision that may have any of a variety of seriously bad consequences for her, and is far less likely to have good consequences?

[rebecca_herman]

18. It's not quite how you are saying it

Almost all people, regardless of their age, know that cancer is a bad, bad thing. I can't think of any belief followed by any number of people that would assign any kind of status and rights to cancer. There are many religious beliefs (which should not be legislated) that sincerely believe the soul begins at conception.
I don't think it's so delusional to believe a fetus is equal to those that are born if it is a sincere religious belief. I'm trying to look at this from the point of view of someone that feels that way - it is dificult since my feelings are so opposite, but I can have compassion for people who feel differently if they are not trying to force their belief on me. But I imagine for someone who feels that a fetus is exactly equal to a born baby, and is pregnant, they would probably rather do pretty much anything than have it killed. Now since I don't believe a fetus to be a baby, if I ever got pregnant in a situation where raising a baby was impossible, I would have an abortion, as it would cause me less trauma then adoption, since adoption is giving it up once it's truly a baby. However, I am as sure as I can be without actually having the view that a fetus is a person, equal, etc, that if I couldn't raise it, I would give it up before killing it IF I VIEWED IT AS MURDER.
Suppose I was a mother right now. And I had a newborn baby. Someone told me I could either stand there, helplessly, as the baby was murdered, and my life would continue as it was before, except now with grief. Or I could have the baby live, but I would have a very difficult life - financially, etc - in the future because of this. I would choose to have a more difficult life, if it meant the baby would live. I imagine most people who sincerely believe themselves to be carrying a child, not a future child which is how I see it, would accept a more difficult life if it would prevent their child's death. Besides, it's not as if her childhood would be preserved in any positive way if her parents forced her into an abortion if her reason against it was that it is murder. You think she's going to have a happy, comfortable life for 7 more years living with people she sincerely feels to be murderers?
And I'm not sure what your feelings are if it was the opposite situation - the girl wants abortion, the parents feel it is murder and want to forbid it - but if a girl is too young to decide abortion is wrong, than isn't she too young to decide it's right? By that logic, if she is far too immature to hold a sincere belief that a fetus has the right to live, than she is obviously too immature to feel that there is nothing wrong with terminating a pregnancy. You know those studies the anti-abortion people love to hold up about the poor women who were sooo traumatized by their abortion that years later they were depressed? Well, from what I looked it, it seems almost all of those particular women were, at the time of the abortion, talked into it by someon else. None of them seem to be the ones who came to the decision on their own.

Edit: I would not want what I have said to apply in cases where there is a genuine threat to the girl's life, but there are pregnancies of very young girls where the girl manages to come out healthy. There was a very young rape victim here (10 when she got pregnant, 11 when she gave birth) who discovered her pregnancy very late (after 6 months) and so no abortion was done as there was no immediate danger to her - so I don't know what she would have wanted or what her mother would have wanted had it been discovered earlier, or what would have been done - and she turned out ok, although the baby was born very sick and has permanent disabilities from being premature - but I just don't see what else could have been done at that point. Obviously there are girls who get very sick from a pregnancy that clearly need an abortion (like the unfortunate 9-year-old Nicaraguan rape victim whose parents had the hardest time getting one for her when she was clearly in terrible health from her pregnancy) so I would say even if she was against it preventing her death comes first.

[iverglas]

22. I'm with WildClarySage ;)

Bluntly -- it would be abuse to *permit* an 11- or 12-yr-old child to continue a pregnancy. Yes indeed, some children come out of it physically and emotionally unscathed (in the short term, anyhow). But there is no way of predicting this, and the risks are too high, and the potential problems are too severe.

A parent who permitted his/her child to operate heavy machinery at that age would be abusing. A parent who permitted his/her child to hitchhike cross-country at that age would be abusing. There is no way of predicting which child will hit the statistical jackpot and get smashed or killed, and the risk of that happening is too high, and the smashing/killing in question is too serious a bad outcome to risk.

The case of the 11-yr-old you cite, who was 6 mo. pregnant when the pregnancy was discovered, isn't really the best one to use. Terminating a pregnancy at 6 mo. is at least as dangerous as continuing it to term for just about any woman.

And it is not irrelevant to note that the baby was born premature, sick and permanently disabled -- what good has come of this? What good would be accomplished -- for anyone, including the child that is born -- by allowing an 11-yr-old to make a decision that has a high risk of making her the mother of a premature, sick and permanently disabled child? The risk of that happening is in fact quite high. Is an 11-yr-old likely to grasp the risk of it happening, and what it will mean if it happens?

It's an interesting point for another reason, though. This question might well be moot in quite a number of such cases -- pregnancy in a young girl might go undetected for longer than in the case of an older girl or woman more used to her body's cycles and so on.

I don't think it's so delusional to believe a fetus is equal to those that are born if it is a sincere religious belief.

But your premise is that an 11-yr-old can HAVE such a "sincere religious belief" -- as something other than a "belief" received from an outside source holus bolus. 11-yr-olds simply don't have the wherewithal to examine beliefs.

And I'm not sure what your feelings are if it was the opposite situation - the girl wants abortion, the parents feel it is murder and want to forbid it - but if a girl is too young to decide abortion is wrong, than isn't she too young to decide it's right?

Nope -- we have a basket of multi-dimensional apples and oranges here.

Nobody has an abortion because she "thinks it's right". Women have abortions because they believe it is in their best interests to do so.

(Surely, women *don't* have abortions for the same reason -- because they believe it is in their best interests *not* to do so -- whatever their "beliefs".)

Parents who would compel an 11-yr-old to have an abortion are not doing it because they "think it's right", in the "moral" sense in which you are speaking. They would do it because they thought it was right for the child -- in her best interests.

Parents who would compel an 11-yr-old *not* to have an abortion are not necessarily doing it because they think it's "wrong" for the child; a (claimed) belief that it is "wrong" could be overriding any consideration of what is right for the child.

... so I would say even if she was against it preventing her death comes first.

But again -- it is almost impossible to foresee who is going to die or become gravely ill or suffer long-lasting disability from pregnancy or delivery. The girl who looked just fine at 3 months might be the girl in desperate need of a termination at 6 months -- when the procedure itself would be much more risky, and traumatic, for her, and when she might have more difficulty getting access to it.

You know those studies the anti-abortion people love to hold up about the poor women who were sooo traumatized by their abortion that years later they were depressed? Well, from what I looked it, it seems almost all of those particular women were, at the time of the abortion, talked into it by someon else. None of them seem to be the ones who came to the decision on their own.

It's a balancing act, one that might have to be performed by parents acting in their child's best interests, and that might have to be overseen in some way. It's possible that the risk of psychological trauma of an abortion to an 11-yr-old who didn't want an abortion might outweigh all the risks of pregnancy and delivery -- for instance, if there would good reason to believe that she would be suicidal. But I'd be seeing some underlying unrelated problems in that event, that would need to be addressed no matter what the outcome of the pregnancy. That kind of response/behaviour just isn't 11-yr-old behaviour.

Ditto all those other poor traumatized women, frankly. If a grown woman, or even an older adolescent, was capable of being coerced into having an abortion she didn't want, she had problems that had nothing to do with her pregnancy.

It's nice to be generous to people one doesn't agree with --

I'm trying to look at this from the point of view of someone that feels that way - it is dificult since my feelings are so opposite, but I can have compassion for people who feel differently if they are not trying to force their belief on me.

-- it just seems to me that you're going way overboard. A child who has the kind of idées fixes about abortion that you're describing is essentially a child who has already been abused, not a child with a sincere religious belief. She has been fed notions about matters that are simply beyond her comprehension, by someone with an agenda.

A child who had not been fed such notions, and instead had the situation explained to her by something along the lines of "you might have a baby in a few months if we don't do something to stop it, and if we don't do that, you could become very very sick and maybe die" is likely going to have a little better grasp on reality -- but even then, a fantasy life about a sweet-smelling baby to wuv and be wuvved by -- and the conviction that terminating the pregnancy is "wrong" because it interferes in her dreams, she being, like all children, the centre of the universe -- might override sense, because the kid is a kid. And it's just adults' responsibility to do what is best for kids, not necessarily what kids want, regardless of their stated reasons.

[rebecca_herman]

24. Clearly we just disagree

11 year olds can have sincere beliefs. I held sincere beliefs about a number of moral issues as a preteen and I still believe those things. I knew as a very young teen that taking care of a little kid wasn't all happy and cute, because I was a mother's helper and a babysitter for years. As for having or not having an abortion based on abortion being right or wrong, most who have an abortion do not consider the procedure morally wrong. A lot who do not have one consider it morally wrong, but there are also some who do not find it wrong but don't find it the best choice at that time. You are underestimating a child in the same way the anti-abortion activists are - you say a child is too young to decide a fetus should be allowed to live, they say, using pretty much the same type of argument, that a a girl is too young to decide a fetus can be killed. If the girl is so completely determined not to have an abortion, to me forcing one upon her is no better than forcing a girl who is completely against giving birth to continue her pregnany and will destroy whatever relationship she has with her parents. We will simply have to agree to disagree.
And just because people believe abortion should be legal (I won't call them pro-choice if they have zero regard for their daughter's choice) doesn't always mean they have the kid's best interests at heart. Maybe they are too busy to have to deal with a pregnant daughter. Maybe they wish to protect a reputation and will be ashamed if it is discovered their daughter got pregnant at such a young age. People on any political side can be bad parents. Maybe the anti-abortion parents do think they have their child's best interests at heart, by preventing her from having a dead baby - I don't really care, because it's the girl's body and forcing birth on her isn't going to do her any good.
As for the 11-year-old and her sick baby, at the point she was at what could be done? If she had an abortion then, it would probably be as risky as giving birth, and there would have been no chance of the fetus ending up healthy - it would have been killed at a stage when it very much resembled a newborn. If the pregnancy had been found earlier who knows what would have happened - she obviously could have had a non-risky early abortion, but if not she might have been able to prevent what happened with better medical care, who really knows. But she went through enough by being raped by an 85 year old man. If she was insistant that she didn't want an abortion, why traumatize her more?

[REP]

25. What If She Were Insistent That She Did Not Want An Icky Appendectomy?

The point being that young children often have odd ideas about what they do and don't want. Many children don't want to eat anything but fast food and sodas, don't want to go to school, take baths, or do a great many things that adults "make" them do for their own good. In the case of an 11 year old child, she well may have some ideas about a living baby doll, but those do not need to be taken any more seriously than her desire for an all-sugar diet. A child that young is simply not competent to make serious medical decisions, and giving birth at that age is so risky it is foolish and negligent to let a child go through it. Whether or not she is traumatized has a great deal to do with how the matter is handled; if she is told that she is going to go to the hospital, go to sleep and when she wakes up, she'll be a little bit sore but everything will be okay she is unlikely to suffer much trauma if any; on the other hand, if she has been told that she is growing a "baby, just like you were" over and over again and that she is being taken to the hospital to have her "baby" taken away or "killed" with a lot handwringing and sobbing, why yes, she may be worked up into some sort of lather over the whole thing.

Have you ever been in to have blood drawn when it's time for schoolchildren to have their pre-entry tests? Most find it a little exciting and interesting, but there's always that one mother making sure her kid knows that there will be needles! and blood! and it will hurt! and working the kid up so by the time it's the kid's turn to get his finger pricked, he's already red-faced and screaming. You can traumatize a kid over just about anything if you work at it.

[rebecca_herman]

26. You underestimate 11 year olds by a lot

Most 11 year olds do have some idea what is going on during pregnancy. I had already learned a decent amount of it in health class. I haven't been 11 for almost 10 years and I wasn't an idiot when I was 11, I may know more now but I knew plenty then. I knew enough that should the unfortunate have happened and I was raped and got pregnant I would not have wanted to keep it. But if I had developed different views I would have hated my parents forever if they forced me to have an abortion I was against when I was already suffering. It's pretty hard to make them think the pregnancy never existed. Technically, allowing a pregnancy to progress is the natural thing. I'm not saying everyone should do it - if they don't want to stay pregnant, get an abortion. But it's generally an elective procedure, in that it generally isn't done to prevent death or injury. If the appendectomy is done because there is a problem with the appendix and it needs to come out now, then of course the parents should overrule the kid. But if they want to get it out when it's healthy just in case something goes wrong it's cruel to make the kid go through surgery. And if an 11 year old can't decide she wants to keep her pregnancy then she can't decide she wants to get rid of it. Clearly if she can't decide life already began, then she isn't educated or old enough to decide there's no life yet. And despite what you say, I really think that if parents can force an abortion no matter what the kid thinks even if the medical opinion is that there is no reason at present to terminate, then they can just as easily force a birth unless a serious medical issue turns up that might cause the state to intervene. Quite frankly, I feel anyone that would allow an abortion to be forced on anyone, no matter how unwilling, is not very pro-choice, and is just as bad as the people who generally support legal abortion but think a kid can't have one without parental approval cause they're just too young to decide.

[REP]

27. You Are Not Every 11-Year-Old

You are making this far too personal. It's not about you. Not every 11 year old is precocious; and no 11-year old is competent to consent to sex, not even with another 11-year old. (In fact, sexual activity at that age is good indicator of sexual abuse.) I'm not talking about forcing a very young child to have an abortion; I'm talking about an adult making a medical decision for a child who is too young to be trusted to make such a decision with any competence or to truly understand what her decision might truly mean. There are some things that are far more important than 'feelings' and 'self-esteem,' after all.

You and I may very well be the exceptions that prove the rule. I, after all, made the decision to forgo parenthood when I was nine, and as an adult I was sterilized not once but twice at my request (demand, actually). Note, though, I had to reach my majority before I could have the much-wanted surgeries; while I had truly made a decision, at that age, it would have been reasonable to assume I had decided that boys were icky, and that if I changed my mind about parenthood, ther was nothing to undo. The same cannot be said of childbirth. As it happened, I had made a reasoned decision from which I have never swayed; however, three years later, I thought menstruation was optional. The point is not that I was an odd child, but that I was still a child.

The other point, of course, is that anecdote is not the plural of data.

[rebecca_herman]

28. How would YOU have felt

If you somehow got pregnant really young and your parents prevented you from having an abortion because you were a kid and couldn't make a medical decision and they knew better and felt having a kid would be in your best interests because otherwise it would be murder that you'd have to live with forever, how would YOU feel? If every child is different, how can you be so sure that forcing an abortion is ALWAYS going to be the best thing? For what it's worth sterilization (assuming you are talking about tubal litigation) is actually more reversable. If the girl is forced to have an abortion she is sure she didn't want, that will be with her forever. Someone who gets their tubes tied is still fully capable of becoming pregnant with IVF.
In any case Google tells me that:
of pregnancies among 10-14 year olds, half of those that do not end naturally result in a live birth, and the other half end in abortion. Clearly, if the health risk was so incredibly severe, those pregnancies would not be ending in live births in which the girl almost always survived. (I do not know the exact number. The risk is double that of a woman in her 20s, but I don't have that number. However, the risk there is very low for that group, I do remember that, so it still comes out very very low)
A woman who is pregnant over 35 has about the same rate of premature birth as a girl under 14 - older bodies have just as many problems as bodies that are too young. So if it's about the fetus's health, well it's just as bad for it when the woman is older than average.
The death rate of very young pregnant girls and over 35 pregnant women was pretty close (in fact the older number may have even been HIGHER).
Quite frankly, I will not presume to know what various rape victims feel. I think if it ever happened to me I would be disgusted and want an abortion immediatley. I can only go by what I have read. And those who had an abortion by choice were happy and felt it contributed to them healing and moving on. And those who kept the pregnancy by choice feel it benifited them and gave them something positive from the experience - none were 11 but some were quite young. I am happy they all had the choice.

Edit: In fact your own words could very clearly be changed slightly and used by the anti-abortion activists who would do anything to prevent an underage girl from choosing an abortion on her own:

"I'm not talking about forcing a very young child to have an abortion; I'm talking about an adult making a medical decision for a child who is too young to be trusted to make such a decision with any competence or to truly understand what her decision might truly mean. There are some things that are far more important than 'feelings' and 'self-esteem,' after all."

could just as easily be

I'm not talking about forcing a very young child to give birth; I'm talking about an adult making a medical decision for a child who is too young to be trusted to make such a decision with any competence or to truly understand what her decision might truly mean. There are some things that are far more important than 'feelings' and 'self-esteem,'after all.

The same could apply -
"to truly understand what her decision might truly mean" - not old enough to understand she is killing something 50% of the population views as a full human being with rights
'feelings' - feeling that staying pregnant is icky and not wanting to be sick, well those are just FEELINGS! The kid doesn't REALLY get it!!
'self-esteem' - the parents' medical decision is CLEARLY more important than the girl being ashamed of her pregnancy and not wanting other kids to know

EVERYTHING you are saying can be used by those who are against abortion to justify forcing a young girl to remain pregnant against her will.

Edit again: I guess I'm done with this topic for now. I've said all I can say, clearly none of us are about to go changing our opinions.

[REP]

31. I Wouldn't've "Felt" I Would've Acted

We're off in wonderland, where my menses started at 11 and not 12 and my parents are monsters instead of the intelligent human beings who love me that I really have, so in that case, since at the age I actually did wear a D cup and could pass for much older, I would have simply obtained an abortion either my taking my mother's ergot-based migraine medicine or by forging a check at the clinic.

And yes: the health and life of the young child is worth much much more than her feelings about whether or not a fetus is a pweshush pweborn poppet or not. Period. Pregnancy and childbirth at age 11 is too dangerous to bother with her budding politics.

Also, just in case you're shopping: tubal ligation by fulgration is the least reversible so that's what I had, and an endometrial ablation is not undoable at all! I can't recommend them enough to the seriously childfree.

[iverglas]

34. more apples and oranges

The death rate of very young pregnant girls and over 35 pregnant women was pretty close (in fact the older number may have even been HIGHER).

This is sounding an awful lot like the argument that pregnancy isn't really riskier than abortion, so abortion is not necessary. Even if that were true, it would be irrelevant.

And the risk of pregnancy in older women is irrelevant to the question of whether the pregnancy of an 11-yr-old child should be terminated by someone else's decision.

Women are adults, and are competent to assess risks and to understand the potential consequences of their decisions, and thus to make the decisions for themselves. If a 40-yr-old woman with hypertension wants to continue her pregnancy to term, that is a decision that she is competent to make, because she is able to assess those risk of bad outcomes occurring for herself, and to understand the nature of the potential bad consequences of the decision. Unless an adult individual is demonstrably incompetent, we let him/her make his/her own choices about such personal matters.

It is adults' RIGHT to make such decisions, regardless of how horrible the potential outcomes and how high the risk of those outcomes materializing.

If an 11-yr-old's risk factors put her at the same risk as the 40-yr-old woman, she is NOT competent to assess the risks, or to understand the consequences of assuming them.

Like the adult woman, she has the right to life and liberty. But those rights commonly must be exercised on her behalf by other people, who are required to do so, in her best interests, and who do so all the damned time, because she is NOT competent to do so in her own best interests. That is simply a fact.

You're simply, repeatedly, refusing to address this issue.

There is nothing at all that distinguishes a decision as to whether a child's pregnancy should continue or be terminated from any other decision that will have an enormous impact on a child's life.

A child might have a better life, both now and for the rest of it, if she is allowed to drop out of school at 11 and spend all day surfing the net. But the odds of that *not* happening, and the risk of her life being shit if she does that vs. staying in school, are too high for her wishes to be the determining factor.

What is it about a pregnancy that makes that decision different??

EVERYTHING you are saying can be used by those who are against abortion to justify forcing a young girl to remain pregnant against her will.

Only if we accept what you persist in claiming: that the third party's delicate "moral" sensibilities override considerations based in reality.

I really don't give a crap what % of a population claims to believe that z/e/fs are human beings, any more than I would care what % of that population claimed to believe that there are faeries at the bottom of their gardens.

When it came to what was in the best interests of their children, I wouldn't be taking into consideration the fact that the pools of stagnant water they kept in the garden had to stay there in order to nourish the faeries.

I'd be turning my mind to the fact that pools of stagnant water breed mosquitos, and that mosquitos carry West Nile disease, and that their children were at risk -- regardless of how low the actual risk of getting West Nile disease actually is, because the outcome if they do get it is potentially horrible.

And I'd be advocating that they be required to at least demonstrate that there were other factors in play that meant that their children were not at the risk they would otherwise be foreseen to be at.


I understand that you're young, and you are concerned about children's rights. What you seem not to be considering is that children have a right to be protected from harm and given the best opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination in future, rather than just allowed to act on their child's notion of what is good for them when doing that would so very probably interfere in their future ability to exercise that right fully.

[WildClarySage]

29. I have an 11 yr old and quite frankly, I don't think anyone is

underestimating them. My son is no more capable of consenting to any medical procedure than he is of driving a car. He simply isn't old enough to comprehend the risks, benefits and consequences. Heck, we don't even leave him alone at home yet.

Are you really saying that you knew about fetal development, the tolls on your body during pregnancy, including calcium leaching, pregnancy-induced hypertension, hyperemesis gravidum, leg cramps, gestational diabetes, heartburn *from hell* (which is why I'm up at this hour! lol) and constant backache? And you could make a thoroughly competent decision regarding your physical condition?

At 11, my son knows the basic mechanics of pregnancy, and he's experiencing it vicariously through me right now. If, as you say, you were vastly more knowledgeable about human development than my son and his peers, then you were a remarkable young girl. You might have hated your parents, but you would be still alive to hate them. My guess is that you are still someone who thinks she knows more about life than she actually does. Take heart, I don't mean that as an insult. At 37, I am now learning how little I know about life, myself.

[rebecca_herman]

30. Then how...

can the 11 year old consent to an abortion against her parents' wishes as almost everyone on this topic that doesn't agree with her deciding to give birth thinks she can do?
And the odds are that the girl would survive either way, unless she is already having a complication. The death rate in this country is still very, very low even for a girl that is very young.
At 11 I didn't know all that, but I knew that pregnancy and birth were very unpleasant; that labor hurt a lot; that women could still die; and that if the girl was very young she was more likely to die. I knew enough about fetal development to decide that I didn't think it was a full baby.
I will be honest. Hypothetically this is what I think: If I ever have an 11 year old pregnant daughter, yes I would do everything I could to convince her it was best she have an abortion. But if she absolutely would not budge, I would do everything I could to support her. But unless a severe medical issue turned up, I would never try to force it. Now of course I can never know and I hope I never will be in that position. But I just can never see myself forcing my hypothetical child to have an abortion unless it was directly to prevent their death.
And sorry about your heartburn, in any case. I get it (probably not as severe but pretty bad) from the summer heat and I'm up with it too.... it's pretty nasty :(

[iverglas]

33. you really need to address the real issue now

And despite what you say, I really think that if parents can force an abortion no matter what the kid thinks even if the medical opinion is that there is no reason at present to terminate, then they can just as easily force a birth unless a serious medical issue turns up that might cause the state to intervene.

Despite my saying that things fall downward when you drop them, you can undoubtedly think that they fall up.

The fact that you think what you've stated here simply does not make it so.

First, when would it be "the medical opinion ... that there is no reason at present to terminate", in the case of a pregnant 11-yr-old? When would the high risk of serious adverse outcomes not be a reason to terminate the pregnancy of an 11-yr-old? It might not, in some imaginable circumstances, necessarily be the determining, overriding reason, but I can't see how it would not be a reason.

I'd be curious what the "medical reason" NOT to terminate the pregnancy might be ...

But the point continues to be: it is at least arguable (*I* think it is close to conclusively arguable, but *you* have to acknowledge at least that it is arguable) that termination would be in the child's best interests even if she didn't like the idea.

In what conceivable circumstances would be even arguable that it would be in a child's best interests to compel her to continue a pregnancy that she wanted to terminate??

What you're saying is pretty much equivalent to if parents can make their children eat brocolli, then they can make them eat dirt. And that just ain't so.

Quite frankly, I feel anyone that would allow an abortion to be forced on anyone, no matter how unwilling, is not very pro-choice, and is just as bad as the people who generally support legal abortion but think a kid can't have one without parental approval cause they're just too young to decide.

Quite frankly, I think you're telling us that anyone who would allow a parent to let an 11-year-old choose to eat dirt is just as good as someone who thinks that 15-yr-olds should be allowed to decide not to eat brocolli.

Make much sense to you? Ditto, I think.


disapproving of allowing children and young adolescents to do things that are foreseeably dangerous and ruinous
("apple")

is not the same thing as

disapproving of allowing women and older adolescents to do things that are not foreseeably dangerous and ruinous
("orange")


Just not.

[iverglas]

32. no, we don't disagree on *everything* !

And just because people believe abortion should be legal ... doesn't always mean they have the kid's best interests at heart.

Definitely. I said, or at least implied, that. That's why I mentioned that there might be a need for oversight -- to ensure that the young girl's best interests are being taken into consideration.

And of course the fact that parents want to have their young daughter's pregnancy terminated doesn't even imply that they are in favour of abortion being legal, let alone pro-choice. Quite a number of people are in favour of being able to make whatever choice they please when they're in the position of needing a choice, and still against anybody else having it. They really could be just self-interested. But that wouldn't necessarily mean that the abortion wasn't in the young girl's best interests! Good decisions really can be made for bad reasons. (I agree with all sorts of people about all sorts of things for very different reasons.)

As for the 11-year-old and her sick baby, at the point she was at what could be done? If she had an abortion then, it would probably be as risky as giving birth ...

Yes, that's pretty much exactly what I did say. In that particular case, an abortion would unlikely have been in her best interests. But I suggested we consider the particular case for two other reasons:

- pregnancies in the case of very young girls may well go undetected until relatively late in the pregnancy more often than in the case of older girls and women;

- the outcome of pregnancies in the case of very young girls is indeed premature, sick, disabled babies at a higher rate than in the case of older girls and women.

The question we're trying to answer seems to be "what's the perfect solution?" when a young girl is pregnant. The only answer is: mu. ;)

The question is loaded with the probably false premise that there is a good solution, let alone a perfect one. An abortion isn't "good", as compared to no pregnancy. But those aren't the choices.

As in the case of any other girl's or woman's pregnancy, a host of factors need to be balanced. For older girls and women, they do their own balancing, and they decide what it is in their best interests to do. That's what parents do for children in relation to just about everything in their lives. (And when parents can't or won't do the job properly, society steps in.)

In the case of an 11-yr-old who is 6 months pregnant, there is no perfect solution, and there likely isn't even a good solution. Continuing the pregnancy to term was obviously a rotten solution -- dangerous for the young girl, horrible for the child who was born. Terminating the pregnancy could well have been a rotten solution -- physically dangerous for the young girl, very likely psychologically / emotionally traumatic for her too. The birth of a premature, sick and disabled child isn't a good solution to any problem. It may have been the best solution in the circumstances, although I'm not actually persuaded that, given the foreseeability of that outcome, which is not a good solution, termination would not have been the better solution.

But if there is a chance to avoid both of those outcomes -- to terminate the pregnancy at a point when it is less physically dangerous or psychologically traumatic for the young girl to do so, and avoid the high risk of a premature, sick and disabled baby being born -- that would appear to be a better solution than continuing the pregnancy.

So very many things in life are messed up by the fact that we can't predict the future. We have to go on the odds, and take as many factors as possible into consideration in assessing them.

I see you looking at the odds of a young girl being traumatized by being compelled to do something she thinks is "wrong". I don't see you looking at the odds of her being traumatized by having to abandon her child for adoption, or having to be a parent at the age of 11 or 12 -- or becoming seriously ill or disabled herself as a result of pregnancy or delivery. I don't see you looking at the odds of her child being permanently disadvantaged by physical problems, problems associated with adoption or problems associated with being raised as the child of an 11- or 12-yr-old mother, however that is organized.

Those are the things that adults are equipped to do, as wildly and blindly as we sometimes have to do it, and children aren't. Assess risks and consider potential consequences. That is exactly what children and young adolescents simply are not equipped to do -- regardless of whether they are capable of holding sincere "moral beliefs" about extremely complex issues.

A child can hold basic "moral" beliefs, for sure, and by that age a child should most certainly have acquired some; it's an essential part of healthy personality development -- essentially, empathy.

Children of that age generally believe that it is "wrong" to hurt animals. But would you rely on the child to make laws about killing animals for food? Using animals to test life-saving medical treatments? Children believe that it is wrong to hurt animals -- but they want to go to the circus. They eat hamburgers. Would we even want to burden them with the moral issues involved? We generally don't, because it would simply make them miserable to make them responsible for all their own choices in such matters. We make decisions on their behalf.

When my nephew was in his early teens, 6 or 7 years ago, my mum and I took him to a sports store to pick out his birthday presents. He really, really wanted a Nike Tshirt. My mum and I really, really refused to buy it for him. Now, both his parents are politically aware and conscientious, and he had been reared in very socially responsible households in a broader community of socially responsible people, so the reasons for our refusal weren't at all lost on him. But, he whined, my mother gives money to all those things, so it's okay if I get the Tshirt. But no, you see, that really isn't how "morality" works.

Kids may not have perfect insight, but they're really good at rationalizing sometimes -- just like psychopaths, who want what they want and other considerations, like other people's interests, just don't come into it.

Other people are indeed going to be affected by a decision about a young girl's pregnancy. The parents, for sure, and not just in ways that they should be unselfish and not think about. Their entire course of their lives will be determined to a considerable extent by that decision. That may not properly be the over-riding factor in the equation, but it isn't "selfish" of them to want their interests to be considered. (Obviously, I'd have to say the same thing about parents who did not want their very young daughter to have an abortion -- as long as we are talking about the same kinds of considerations, and not pure anti-choicism.) Most women with unwanted pregnancies do consider other people's interests, in fact.

Not least among them, of course, is the child who would be born. An 11-yr-old child can have all the "moral" convictions you like about the "wrongness" of abortion, but how is she on the rightness or wrongness of putting that child in the world, and all the effects her decision will have on that child? Unforseeable effects, effects that have to be guessed at, on the odds, and considering the level of risk and seriousness of potential bad outcomes.

You wouldn't let an 11-yr-old make the laws that determine what you get to eat or what drugs are available to you, based on her convictions about how animals should be treated; why would you want to let her make the decision that determines what the entire life of another human being will be like?

You are underestimating a child in the same way the anti-abortion activists are - you say a child is too young to decide a fetus should be allowed to live, they say, using pretty much the same type of argument, that a a girl is too young to decide a fetus can be killed.

No, once again, you're giving me apples and oranges.

The "right"ness or "wrong"ness of abortion is only one factor in the decision regarding a pregnancy. We all do things every minute of the day that we believe are "wrong". It's wrong to pollute the earth; we drive and turn on the air conditioner. It's wrong to hurt animals; we buy meat that we know damned well came from mistreated animals. It's wrong not to help the poor; we don't turn over half our income to the food bank.

She may or may not be too young to decide whether abortion is right or wrong -- but that just isn't the issue. She's too young to decide whether eating hamburger is right or wrong too, but there are no laws against selling hamburgers to children unaccompanied by adults; legislators have made that decision -- that it's okay for the child to eat hamburger -- and it's implemented by hamburger vendors millions of times a day. And children can decide not to eat hamburgers because it's "wrong" -- but that decision isn't going to determine the entire course of their lives, as long as someone else makes the decisions that ensure that the child is well nourished.

Parents get to decide things for their children, acting in what they believe are the children's best interests -- as long as they don't cross the line into doing something that is very plainly not in their best interests. At a certain point, children become able to decide on their own behalf what is in their best interests -- not just what they want now. The "right"ness or "wrong"ness, in their view, of what they are doing will be one of their considerations, just as it is for adults. But when something is legal and not excessively dangerous or likely to jeopardize their future, we don't prevent children from doing it simply because they're not old enough to have an adult understanding of the "right"ness or "wrong"ness of it.

We do prevent 15-yr-olds from dropping out of school, because that is likely to jeopardize their future. We do prevent them from drinking alcohol, because that is excessively dangerous.

But in the case of a 15-yr-old girl, an abortion is simply not excessively dangerous, and not likely to jeopardize her future. And While a full-term pregnancy, and becoming a parent, may be both more dangerous and more likely to jeopardize her future, they are not excessively so, so that's a decision it is more reasonable to allow an older girl to make than a younger girl.

In the case of an 11-yr-old girl, continuing a pregnancy to term is excessively dangerous and very likely to jeopardize her future. And early termination is neither.

The risks may of course vary in individual cases. A pregnancy may be, to the extent it is foreseeable, less physically risky for one girl than another. A termination, again to the extent it is foreseeable, may be more psychologically traumatic for one girl than another. The foreseeable effect on the girl's future of having a child may vary considerably from one girl to another, often depending on family circumstances. But the risk of bad outcomes, for the girl and the child she would have in particular, is so high, and the potential bad outcomes so serious, that it's hard to see how, in most cases, the scale would tip toward continuing the pregnancy.

(Now -- I'm not saying that the effect on the child that would be born should be a factor used to override women's decisions about their pregnancies, such as what they choose to do while pregnant. I'm saying that young girls don't have the ability to consider those risks and potential consequences, so the deference that must be shown to their choices, in which that factor is an unavoidable consideration, is not the same as for adult women.)

And again, just to summarize, I'm not seeing you considering all those risks and all those potential bad outcomes the way you would in respect of any other decision concerning a child's health and welfare. I just don't think there's any need to pander to the anti-choice brigade by elevating any allegedly "moral" concerns in play to the status of be-all and end-all in the decision-making equation.

[musical_soul]

36. Best interests of the child.

The physical, okay. What about the other stuff? There is adoption. I don't support letting parents force their kids into birthing kids and giving them up for adoption. However, if the teen is convinced abortion is "murder" and would rather have the baby, then should the parent have the final say so? I think the kid should be allowed to have the baby with the knowledge that they would have to give the kid up for adoption because they're a minor. That helps the parent keep the kid from taking up responsibility they're not ready to handle yet. It further makes the kid know that they're not "murderers". I wish kids didn't think this way, but some do.

For those who once believed abortion to be murder, we know what that kid would be getting put through. Imagine being put through the belief that you're a murderer or that a "baby" died because you conceived..

[iverglas]

37. okay ...

However, if the teen is convinced abortion is "murder" and would rather have the baby, then should the parent have the final say so? I think the kid should be allowed to have the baby with the knowledge that they would have to give the kid up for adoption because they're a minor.

And how can an 11-yr-old possibly know or begin to understand the effects that this decision will have on herself and the child who will be born (about whom she apparently cares so deeply)?

One more aspect of children's inability to appreciate the consequences of actions. In this case, the consequences are known to be really quite awful in a very high proportion of cases. What does the child know of that? And why would we think that the child's appreciation of the situation would be any different from "that won't happen to me" -- the way children look at the possible consequences of just about any risky behaviour they engage in?

No -- me, I'll have a baby at the age of 12, suffer no long-lasting physical or social or emotional effects of the pregnancy and delivery, abandon my baby to strangers, and me and s/he will live happily ever after.

That helps the parent keep the kid from taking up responsibility they're not ready to handle yet. It further makes the kid know that they're not "murderers". I wish kids didn't think this way, but some do.

And again ... why? Because of their heads being stuffed with propaganda, because of their immaturity ... all remediable conditions.

The adverse effects of pregnancy and delivery, and parenthood and/or relinquishment, are not so easily remedied.

I'm aghast that someone thinks that parents could compel their daughter to abandon her baby to strangers, and yet not decide on her behalf to terminate her pregnancy.

For those who once believed abortion to be murder, we know what that kid would be getting put through. Imagine being put through the belief that you're a murderer or that a "baby" died because you conceived..

I'm imagining being put through the lifelong knowledge that you abandoned your child because you were too immature and self-absorbed to consider the consequences of your actions ...

[musical_soul]

38. Under your logic then....

a parent should also be allowed to force their child to give birth. Seriously, if parents are the ones who know best, then they should be allowed to force their kids into giving birth.

You're talking about the lifelong knowledge of knowing one had to give their kid up for adoption. What about the lifelong "knowledge" that their "baby" was "murdered"? I'm not saying I agree with that belief, but some do have it. For the record, I never would have forgiven my parents if they had forced me into either one.

[iverglas]

39. please don't do that

Under your logic then....
a parent should also be allowed to force their child to give birth. Seriously, if parents are the ones who know best, then they should be allowed to force their kids into giving birth.

Please don't pretend that I have said anything that sounds like "parents are the ones who know best" as if that were a univeral truth of some sort.

I have never said that -- in fact I have said things quite different -- so please don't address me as if I have said it.

You started out by replying to my first post on the question.

Here's what I said in that very post:

This is likely something that should involve some oversight of the parents' decision, however. Any health care provider who got the impression that a young girl was subject to a decision to terminate her pregnancy, made by her parents against her wishes, ought to inquire into the situation, or refer the matter to an authority that could. Not only because the girl might be the victim of sexual abuse (she might not be abused at all), but because she might need someone to examine her best interests if it appeared that the parents were not acting in them.

Now, how closely does that resemble the bald assertion that "parents are the ones who know best"? Not very, I'd say.

Then you might read the various other things I've written in this thread regarding the notion that parents "should be allowed to force their kids into giving birth" as a result, somehow, of knowing what's best for their children. I have asked when, exactly, it might be considered "best" for an 11- or 12-year-old child to have a full-term pregnancy and delivery, and become a parent.

No one has replied without excluding, or trivializing, all of the other considerations besides the but she thinks it's murder! factor.

You're talking about the lifelong knowledge of knowing one had to give their kid up for adoption. What about the lifelong "knowledge" that their "baby" was "murdered"?

Well, I guess I could answer that question over and over and over again. I'm not inclined to, though. I'll just say I'm glad you put all those words in quotation marks.

[REP]

40. Do I Have To Whip Out The Studies *Again*?

Okay - not, for you Iverglas; I know you know this but for the new students:

Abortion does not cause long-term psychological harm.
Adoption does (for both relinquishing mother and abandoned infant).

Studies:

J Obstet Gynecol Neonatal Nurs 1999 Jul-Aug;28(4):395-400

Postadoptive reactions of the relinquishing mother: a review.

Askren HA, Bloom KC.

Deer Valley OB/GYN, Mesa, AZ, USA.

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature addressing the process of relinquishment
as it relates to the birth mother. DATA SOURCES: Computerized searches in
CINAHL; Article 1 st, PsycFIRST, and SocioAbs databases, using the keywords
adoption and relinquishment; and ancestral bibliographies. STUDY SELECTION:
Articles from indexed journals in the English language relevant to the
keywords were evaluated. No studies were located before 1978. Studies that
sampled only an adolescent population were excluded. Twelve studies met the
inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. DATA EXTRACTION: Data
were extracted and information was organized under the following headings:
grief reaction, long-term effects, efforts to resolve, and influences on the
relinquishment experience. DATA SYNTHESIS: A grief reaction unique to the
relinquishing mother was identified. Although this reaction consists of
features characteristic of the normal grief reaction, these features persist
and often lead to chronic, unresolved grief. CONCLUSIONS: The relinquishing
mother is at risk for long-term physical, psychologic, and social
repercussions. Although interventions have been proposed, little is known
about their effectiveness in preventing or alleviating these repercussions.

Med J Aust 1986 Feb 3;144(3):117-9 Related Articles, Links


Psychological disability in women who relinquish a baby for adoption.

Condon JT.

During 1986, approximately 2000 women in Australia are likely to relinquish
a baby for adoption. A study is presented of 20 relinquishing mothers that
demonstrates a very high incidence of pathological grief reactions which
have failed to resolve although many years have elapsed since the
relinquishment. This group had abnormally high scores for depression and
psychosomatic symptoms on the Middlesex Hospital questionnaire. Factors that
militate against the resolution of grief after relinquishment are discussed.
Guidelines for the medical profession that are aimed at preventing
psychological disability in relinquishing mothers are outlined.

Abortion doesn't affect well-being, study says

New York Times (as printed in the San Jose Mercury 2/12/97)

Abortion does not trigger lasting emotional trauma in young women who
are psychologically healthy before they become pregnant, an eight-year
study of nearly 5,300 women has shown. Women who are in poor shape
emotionally after an abortion are likely to have been feeling bad about
their lives before terminating their pregnancies, the researchers said.

The findings, the researchers say, challenge the validity of laws
that have been proposed in many states, and passed in several, mandating
that women seeking abortions be informed of mental health risks.

The researchers, Dr. Nancy Felipe Russo, a psychologist at Arizona
State University in Tempe, and Dr. Amy Dabul Marin, a psychologist at
Phoenix College, examined the effects of race and religion on the
well-being of 773 women who reported on sealed questionnaires that
they had undergone abortions, and they compared the results with the
emotional status of women who did not report abortions.

The women, initially 14 to 24 years old, completed questionnaires and
were interviewed each year for eight years, starting in 1979. In 1980
and in 1987, the interview also included a standardized test that
measures overall well-being, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.

"Given the persistent assertion that abortion is associated with
negative outcomes, the lack of any results in the context of such a
large sample is noteworthy," the researchers wrote. The study took
into account many factors that can influence a woman's emotional
well-being, including education, employment, income, the presence of
a spouse and the number of children.

Higher self-esteem was associated with being employed, having a
higher income, having more years of education and bearing fewer children,
but having had an abortion "did not make a difference," the researchers
reported. And the women's religious affiliations and degree of involvement
with religion did not have an independent effect on their long-term
reaction to abortion. Rather, the women's psychological well-being before
having abortions accounted for their mental state in the years after the
abortion, the researchers said..

In considering the influence of race, the researchers again found
that the women's level of self-esteem before having abortions was the
strongest predictor of their well-being after an abortion.

"Although highly religious Catholic women were slightly more likely
to exhibit post-abortion psychological distress than other women, this
fact is explained by lower pre-existing self-esteem," the researchers
wrote in the current issue of Professional Psychology: Research and
Practice, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

Overall, Catholic women who attended church one or more times a week,
even those who had not had abortions, had generally lower self-esteem
than other women, although within the normal range, so it was hardly
surprising that they also had lower self-esteem after abortions, the
researchers said in interviews.

Gail Quinn, executive director of anti-abortion activities for the
United States Catholic Conference, said the findings belied the
experience of post-abortion counselors. She said, "While many women
express `relief' following an abortion, the relief is transitory."
In the long term, the experience prompts "hurting people to seek the
help of post-abortion healing services," she said.

The president of the National Right to Life Committee, Dr. Wanda
Franz, who earned her doctorate in developmental psychology, challenged
the researchers' conclusions. She said their assessment of self-esteem
"does not measure if a woman is mentally healthy," adding, "This requires
a specialist who performs certain tests, not a self-assessment of how
the woman feels about herself."

Most Women Do Not Feel Distress, Regret After Undergoing Abortion, Study Says



   The majority of women who choose to have legal abortions do not experience regret or long-term negative emotional effects from their decision to undergo the procedure, according to a study published in the June issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine, NewsRx.com/Mental Health Weekly Digest reports. Dr. A. Kero and colleagues in the Department of Clinical Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology at University Hospital in Umea, Sweden, interviewed 58 women at periods of four months and 12 months after the women's abortions. The women also answered a questionnaire prior to their abortions that asked about their living conditions, decision-making processes and general attitudes toward the pregnancy and the abortion. According to the study, most women "did not experience any emotional distress post-abortion"; however, 12 of the women said they experienced severe distress immediately after the procedure. Almost all of the women said they felt little distress at the one-year follow-up interview. The women who said they experienced no post-abortion distress had indicated prior to the procedure that they opted not to give birth because they "prioritized work, studies, and/or existing children," according to the study. According to the researchers, "almost all" of the women said the abortion was a "relief or a form of taking responsibility," and more than half of the women said they experienced positive emotional experiences after the abortion such as "mental growth and maturity of the abortion process" (NewsRx.com/Mental Health Weekly Digest, 7/12).

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=24751

[sakabatou]

14. No-one should be forced to have an abortion...

Unless it was endangering the girl/woman.

[liontamer]

15. what do you mean by endangering?

[sakabatou]

16. Like life-threatening

[Iris]

19. But a woman should be allowed (not coerced) to choose to continue a

pregnancy even if her life is in danger.

[WildClarySage]

21. Every pregnancy can be life-threatening, and nobody can predict

with any accuracy which will be deadly. Though we consider maternal death rates to be very low, there are many conditions which a pregnancy can trigger or exacerbate which result in premature, though not immediate death. For example, pregnancy induced hypertension, which can be deadly during pregnancy, may not kill the mother during delivery or even during the post-partum period, but can still be the cause of her death a year or more later if her blood pressure never returns to normal afterward. Same with diabetes, which is often triggered during pregnancy. Post-partum depression can be deadly, but post-partum suicide isn't usually considered a maternal death. What about the women for whom the stress of being a single mother is too great and she turns to the drugs/alcohol abuse that eventually kills her?

We can take a look at risks and determine who is 'high risk' for maternal/fetal death, but we cannot yet look into the future to decide which pregnancy will ultimately result in death for the mother.

[WildClarySage]

20. Personally, I think it's abuse to allow an 11- or 12-yr old to continue

a pregnancy. The physical risks on a young child being pregnant are too great to allow her to jeapordize her health and the developing fetus'. Parents who think she must have the baby as the consequences of sexual behavior are trying to punish her and putting her life at risk. Not only do I think that parents of very young (pre-teen) pregnant girls have the right to force an abortion, I think they have the responsibility to do so.

[Lars39]

23. It doesn't even have to get as serious as physical risks,

just getting enough nutrition for both is enough reason to abort.
It's very hard to adequately cover nutritional needs for a late teen, let alone a younger pregnant child.

[musical_soul]

35. No.

I support the right to give birth and not be forced into either option. As a minor, I don't think she should be allowed to keep the baby without parental approval (unless the courts will grant her an emancipation order).