Posted on 03/05/2006 10:34:17 PM PST by conservative in nyc
For all the passions they generate, laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion do not appear to have produced the sharp drop in teenage abortion rates that some advocates hoped for, an analysis by The New York Times shows.
The analysis, which looked at six states that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade and is believed to be the first study to include data from years after 1999, found instead a scattering of divergent trends.
For instance, in Tennessee, the abortion rate went down when a federal court suspended a parental consent requirement, then rose when the law went back into effect. In Texas, the rate fell after a notification law went into effect, but not as fast as it did in the years before the law. In Virginia, the rate barely moved when the state introduced a notification law in 1998, but fell after the requirement was changed to parental consent in 2003.
Since the United States Supreme Court recognized states' rights to restrict abortion in 1992, parental involvement legislation has been a cornerstone in the effort to reduce abortions. Such laws have been a focus of divisive election campaigns, long court battles and grass-roots activism, and are now in place in 34 states. Most Americans say they favor them.--Snip--
When the Times study compared the first full year after a state began enforcing a parental law with the last full year before the law, it found that abortions among minors dropped an average of 9 percent. But in the same period, the rates for pregnant 18- and 19-year-olds, who were not affected by the law, dropped by 5 percent, suggesting that most of the drop among minors was associated with other factors that affected minors and adults alike.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
As always, consider the source.
This is all interesting but pointless.
If you had a daughter who was pregnent WOULDN'T YOU WANT TO KNOW?
If you had a daughter and she got an abortion behind your back WOULDN'T YOU BE ANGRY?
Don't parents have a right to know that their daughter is getting treatment, regardless of what that treatment is?
Laws will never stop abortion.
Wow.
If consent laws don't reduce abortions, why is the bloodthirsty left so opposed to them?
Laws will never stop murder or rape either. Is that an argument for legalizing murder or rape or abortion? I don't think so.
I love charts. But those charts make absolutely no sense to me.
So what are the actusl numbers? For whatever reason, how many babies lived?
Parental notification and/or consent is still good because 1) Parents should be able to know what is going on in their daughter's lives. Girls hide their abortions not because they fear their parents will stop them, but because they fear getting caught having sex, especially with an older or other inappropriate male and 2) Abortion is a medical procedure. Parents have a right to make sure their children receive the best medical care possible, and not have their daughter treated by a quack.
Yeah. I'm trying to figure how if they weighted poor areas and
curved on income.
Abortion is unique. Can't generalize with anything else.
Necrophilia is also unique, but moral laws apply to it, as they do to murder, rape, and abortion.
Do you really want to execute desperate young girls?
We execute desperate young boys that have killed people.
What's good for the goose....
Apples and oranges. If you think it through, laws against abortion are unenforceable.
Hmmmm....perhaps you're right, let's think it through....
In one case, you have the premeditated taking of an innocent life.
In the other, you have the premeditated taking of an innocent life.
Not apples and oranges at all.
If you think it through, laws against abortion are unenforceable.
No more than any other law that punishes those who commit violent acts on the innocent.
Even if one life is saved............it will be worth it when judgment day comes!
My question is what happened to the teen pregnancy rates in those states during the same period.
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