by Viv Corridor

Created on: September 15, 2008

Yes, parents should be notified when an underaged girl seeks an abortion. In fact, as that rarest of social types - a self-professed liberal who is also against abortion - I'll go one step further and say an adult woman, too, should also be required to at least advise the father that she's seeking an abortion. (Although in the case of an adult woman, the law ensures she doesn't need the father's consent to have an abortion).

Why do I say this? Because pregnancy, while directly affecting the life and health of just two people - the mother and her fetus - also indirectly impacts many others in the woman's life, including the father and, in the case of minors, their parents. As a culture that fiercely defends our individual freedoms, we often overlook the fact that we ARE a community, and not a single human action of import (such as the decision to end a pregnancy) occurs in a vacuum. Such momentous action inevitably affects those around us. Abortion rights supporters would have us believe abortion is merely a health issue, of concern only to the woman carrying the pregnancy. That belief flies in the face of the simple reality of human interactions - our decisions and actions affect everyone whose lives are intertwined with ours.

In the case of minor girls, the impact of a pregnancy on the girl's parents is even greater. Teen pregnancy can occur in even the most close-knit family, and in those cases the girl's parents will undoubtedly play a significant role in terms of emotional and financial support. Should the girl choose to keep the baby, the parents will likely assist with parenting that baby. If she chooses to put it up for adoption, they will be called on to facilitate the adoption. If the girl opts for abortion, her parents will be the ones dealing with any emotional or physical fallout afterward.

More importantly, however, parents should be notified because it is not only their right, but their responsibility, to have a say in the major life decisions of their underaged children. Close-minded, anti-abortion liberal that I am, I believe abortion is an easy escape from responsibility for teenagers who have played an adult game when they weren't ready to accept the grown-up consequences. Yes, a teen pregnancy has life-altering impact on a girl - and often the boy involved. And a pregnant, underaged girl should be required to deal with the consequences of her actions and carry the pregnancy to term (except in cases of rape or incest, which, by the way, constitute just 1 percent of abortions). Whether she keeps the baby or gives it up for adoption is a decision she should make with the support and advice of her parents.

Her parents, too, should be required to deal with the consequences as well. No matter what Sarah Palin and the newly opened-minded GOP say, parents ARE responsible - at least in part - for their teenage daughters' pregnancies, just as parents are partly responsible for all unacceptable behavior by their teens. Bad behavior by teens stems from a lack of parental supervision and/or parents' lack of success instilling the concepts of moral responsibility in their children. Judgmental? Yes. But also true.

Simply put, since parents help to create the mess a teen pregnancy makes of a girl's life, they should be required to help sort out that mess. That can only happen if they are aware of the pregnancy, and their daughter's further efforts to shirk responsibility for her actions by terminating the pregnancy.

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