This reasoning sounds fairly mature, and also entirely legitimate. She’s able to identify her limitations and consider the consequences of being forced to carry the pregnancy to term. She’s able to articulate how her life would change if she were made to have a baby and how financial constraints would impact the baby’s life. She may need to drop out of school. She will likely need to put her dreams on hold in order to find a job that can pay for the expenses of having a child.
And what consequences will the father face? Aside from paying child support — which is hardly guaranteed — none, it seems.
Beyond that, the restrictions on people seeking abortions is a punishment levied directly on women and girls. After all, the man or boy involved will not have to bear the same consequences, either physically or financially or socially. Are we saving one potential life to ruin another — with no thought to quality of life for either?
From a purely economic standpoint, forcing children — or any woman who feels she’s not ready — to have children makes little sense, and even less so in the context of Republican values. Even if some women forced to have children can make it work emotionally and financially, many won’t be able to, and that will leave the rest of us to provide assistance either to young mothers or to the mass of babies given up for adoption. Otherwise, they will all suffer.
As the comedian George Carlin once put it, “These conservatives are all in favor of the unborn, they will do anything for the unborn, but once you’re born, you’re on your own. … No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re preschool, you’re f*****.”
And, of course, while teenagers, like this 16-year-old, are still children who need guidance, they are old enough to know what they can handle. As such, we have to listen to them — and it’s to our detriment if we don’t.
These determinations are arbitrary, and parental consent shouldn’t be an impediment. A parent’s role in counseling their child on whether to get an abortion may be important. But considering the long term emotional, physical, and social implications of carrying a fetus to term, it should not be necessary for a parent to weigh in. The stakes are just too high and requiring a guardian’s consent assumes that all parents are looking out for the best interests of their child, which just isn’t always the case. Laws about what teenagers can and cannot do — smoke marijuana, for example, or drink alcohol — exist for a reason. But until we prevent them from having sex, which is impossible, adults should not prevent them from saving themselves from the consequences of that sex.
In fact, we can only aim to help them should they find themselves facing an unwanted pregnancy. After all, it’s not just saving them; it’s saving an unwanted child from coming into the world and it’s saving a society from taking on the burden of caring for a child. That should be something that all parties agree on. Let’s hope they can, before too many more lives are compromised.
