Teen abortions reduced by Texas notification law

[cynatnite]

BOSTON (Reuters) - Teen-age girls in Texas are having fewer abortions following enforcement of a law that forces doctors to tell a parent if their daughter wants to terminate her pregnancy, new research shows. But the law has also increased the birth rate among older white teens and forced some girls to delay the procedure, increasing its risk.

snip:
The study found that many girls who become pregnant close to their eighteenth birthday put off the abortion until they turn 18 so they can avoid the notification requirement. But the delay "just makes more difficult, more expensive and potentially more risky," Joyce said.

The law also seemed responsible for a 10 percent increase in the birthrate among 17-year-old white girls who became pregnant when they were a bit further from their 18th birthday, so were unable to wait to have an abortion.

snip:
"The demonstrated decrease in abortion rates and increase in birth rates suggest that Texas' parental notification law induced a rise in unintended childbearing among this subgroup of older minors," the researchers stated in the study.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060308/hl_nm/abortion_dc

[Fridays Child]

1. Lovely. Just lovely.

:nuke:

[Warpy]

2. ...and postponed until after the 18th birthday, when the more dngerous

second trimester abortion must be performed.

Or are terminated through targeed beatings by a boyfriend.

Or are terminated by self abuse.

None of these figure into their warm, fuzzy statistic on all those saved bay-bees.

[Jara sang]

3. They had that on ABC news last night.

With some little girl who decided to keep her baby because of the law.

[noonwitch]

6. That's what happens-there won't be a big adoption increase

The girl will keep her baby, maybe raise it herself, maybe let mom do it. Maybe she'll leave her baby in foster care and a year or so later, her rights get terminated and the foster parent or relative adopts the then 2 or 3 year old.

But the infertile white couples out there hoping for more white babies to adopt are not going to see it happen, at least not that way. They'd be better off getting licensed as foster parents and adopting kids who come to them that way. Of course, those kids have frequently been mistreated and have behavior problems, but loving and patient christians should be able to overcome that.

[Beaverhausen]

4. I'll wager this coincides with an increase in children living in poverty

Didn't Texas cut a major child welfare program recently?

[slide to the left]

5. yes

They uninsure 170,000 kids. No more abortions, lets have more uninsured kids.

[Caoimhe]

7. They don't mention the increase in "dumpster babies"

I have heard that the number of abandoned newborns, usually stuffed in dumpsters or trash cans, have increased since the parental notification laws went into effect in Texas. I have no link, but I'm sure the info is out there.