While Illinois has a mandatory parental involvement law on the books, it has long been enjoined. Thus, young women in Illinois who are capable of making their own abortion decision can do so with the guidance of their healthcare provider and other trusted adults. They are not forced to involve their parents where they do not feel safe doing so. However, the State is aggressively seeking to end that court protection for young women and to enforce the Illinois Parental Notification of Abortion Act. It is imperative to put an end to the threat of parental notification in Illinois, and to work to eliminate similar laws across the country.
I have seen first hand the harms that forced parental involvement impose on young women. My first clinic position in this field was as a counselor in Colorado before the state adopted parental notification. Every weekend I would counsel young women from the neighboring state of Utah, who had lied to their parents, borrowed money and often unreliable transportation, and driven long hours on strange highways and interstates to get to our clinic. It was not unusual to arrive at the clinic and find the young woman and the person who had traveled with her sleeping in a car.
They certainly didn't have money for lodging and scarcely enough for food. However, they so feared for their safety and their future that they were willing to go to extreme measures to avoid being forced to involve their parents in their unintended pregnancy. These young women feared being beaten or thrown out of their homes if their parents learned they were pregnant.
Granted, there are young women who voluntarily tell their parents; in fact, many young women come to our clinic with their mothers. Unfortunately, however, not all teens live in this reality. For those who would not otherwise tell a parent, these laws can impose irreversible physical and psychological harms. The health and well being of these young women depends of putting an end to these dangerous laws.
by Sally Burgess, director of the Hope Clinic in Belleville, IL
For more information, watch Lorie Chaiten of the ACLU on parental notification laws in IL
Follow Reproductive Justice on Twitter: www.twitter.com/STVNewMedia
Parental Consent and Notification Laws for Teen Abortions: Pro and Con
Windy City Times - Parental Notification Law Being Considered in ...
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A closer look at legal regulation of adolescent
Comments have been made here by parents, expressing concern that they might not be made aware of their daughters’ intimate decisions. I can reassure these parents that many pro-choice supporters have successful
Most of these laws, however, are designed with one thing in mind: how to use the issue to play anti-abort
For more on who passes these laws and why, see Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarizati
When a woman gets pregnant, in one way it doesn't matter whether or not she gives birth. Because regardless of what choice she makes, her life is changed forever.
I do believe in life at conception
I do believe a minor becomes an adult at 18.
And I am not religious
I also believe that a responsibl
Sounds kind of silly when you put it that way, doesn't it? But it's the same logic. Giving birth is no less 'life changing' than having an abortion. If the state can require a parent's permission for an abortion, why not require it for childbirth
abortions cause physical and emotional harm as well.
What is at the heart of your comment is an attempt to justify forcing a woman to bear a child because you think an abortion has something to do with your silly belief in a mythical creator. Even if it were true that it exists, what a woman does or doesn't do is between her and it, not you or the other true believers.
i'm an atheist who happens to know several women who regret that particular decision more than anything else in their lives. one of them can't have children anymore because of it.
i'm not totally against abortion. i just think parents should be involved in their minors decisions.
The problem with laws like this is the based assumption is that you are born with crummy parents. And because "some" are ... let's create an abortion law for everyone. When a teenager gets pregnant ... even when they have good parents that will react responsibl
I get the thought process that sometimes there are bad parents who will make the kid miserable. But it is a procedure, just like any other surgery ... and the parental approval needs to be there.
You are creating a very slippery slope by thinking the government can help our kids better than parents.
I have a 4 yr old daughter and I 'll be damed if she is able to get an abortion without my consent.
What if there are complicati
Every other elective surgery for a minor requires parental consent. Allowing some hack doctor perfrom surgery on my underage daughter without my permission
What you people don't get is when women get proper medical services the potential for a problem is minuscule. However, when you place restrictio
And if this country had a single payer health care system like civilized countries do, the cost wouldn't be a factor now, would it? But since you like the gop you are against that too, quality medical care for everyone, right?
that was obama protecting the health insurance companies.
yeah create laws that take away the freedom of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Leave it to the government to choose how best to "parent."
You blame psychologi
Or the girl that gets pregnant by sweet uncle fiddle-aro
Or the girl that started sleeping around to find a bit of love, however misplaced, because mom and dad have beat the sh(t out of her for a decade?
All homes aren't Ozzie and Harriet.
It's clear that children have rights as individual
okay then change the law that killing a pregnant woman is a double-hom
and lets just toss out all that science involving the 3rd trimester.
I think you are beligerant and intolerant of other beliefs to the point where you should be embarrasse
It's really sad that young women find themselves in this position, but bad parents should have no right to intrude.
Yes, I'm the mother of daughters. No, none of them have been unintentio
Yes, some girls will be abused, and some will be thrown out of their homes. Many (maybe most) will be forced to have a child they do not want. But if you cannot figure out birth control, will you really be able to understand the medical risks of the procedure, or know yourself well enough that you will not regret this decision. No, women who have abortions usually have no regrets. But a 15, 16, or 17 year old is not a woman, she is a child.
I find your ignorance about birth control and access to it abominable
I can't help but wonder what kind of women you are that buy into the notion that it is perfectly acceptable that some girls will be abused and thrown onto the streets and forced to bear a child they do not want, and don't forget that there will be another cycle of abuse here, just so parents can maintain some sort of rights.
As a man, I find these intolerabl