Parental Consent For Teenage Abortions

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Parental Consent for Teenage Abortions
In the decades following the Roe versus Wade case, abortion still remains a controversial topic. It is said that three out of ten under aged girls will become pregnant before the age of 20 which is almost 750,000 pregnancies a year which results in 35% of pregnant teens having an abortion. Many teens who can 't confide in an adult choose to go in the abortion route. In 1981, eight years after abortion became legalized, the Minnesota Parental Notification law was passed taking away the abortion right from minors where both parents must be notified within 48 hours before the medical procedure is done. However, professional opinions believe that minors parental consent notification laws can become significantly dangerous to a woman 's health. Studies show that the effect of parental consent laws remain unknown because minors are able to travel to states where the law isn 't in effect and go through with an abortion. Although it decreased the number of abortions for some time, it has also decreased the amount of birth rates as well. As a way to examine the rights for an abortion of a minor, this paper will focus on the insignificance of parental consent laws for teenage abortions.
The Roe versus Wade case gave women the right to an abortion in 1973. This caused the country to divide into two sides: pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-life are for persons who believe a mother figure does not have a right to take their child 's life away under any circumstances. Pro-choice are for persons who believe it is solely the mother 's decision whether or not she wants to keep or abort her unborn child. It was clear that the government supported a woman 's right to an abortion by the Roe versus Wade verdict. Und...

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...hild 's life. This shows why, in some cases, abortion at a young age is a necessity in order to remain successful in high school, college, and life.
For pro-life persons, the idea of abortion makes a young woman selfish and murderous. However, "According to Hurthouse, for some women, the decision to abort does not manifest bad character: (Manninen 114)
• Women who abort due to poor physical health
• Women who abort out of fear for their lives or have pregnancy-related health impairments
• Women who abort because they honestly do not believe that they are ready to be mothers and because they feel they cannot provide for the resulting child
• Women who abort because pregnancy and childrearing would interfere with other intrinsically valuable activities
The various reasons above are explanations as to why teenage mothers feel obligated to go through with an abortion.

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