Little impact

The obvious tactic that most anti-abortionists use when lobbying for a parental notification for abortion bill is that there are too many minors out there having lots of sex and therefore lots of abortions, all without the parent knowing any better. Parental notification, they argue, will change that cycle. I've suggested that it only stalls the second part, and that will lead to an increase in teen motherhood as well as a hike in teens thrown out of their house and forced to raise children on the own.

While the latest New York Times study doesn't agree with my presumptions, it also fails to back up the anti-abortion crowds logic as well. In the six states that the Times examined with parental notification laws, they found the laws had little impact on the teen pregnancy rate or the teen abortions.

In fact, abortion providers in most states claim to actually see an increase in one thing: parents trying to force their children to have an abortion:

... [P]roviders interviewed in 10 states with parental involvement laws all said that of the minors who came into their clinics, parents were more often the ones pushing for an abortion, even against the wishes of their daughters.

"I see far more parents trying to pressure their daughters to have one," said Jane Bovard, owner of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, N.D., a state where a minor needs consent from both parents. "As a parent myself, I can understand. But I say to parents, 'You force her to have this abortion, and I can tell you that within the next six months she's going to be pregnant again.' "

Renee Chelian, director of Northland Family Planning Centers in the Detroit area, said she had had to call the police on parents who wanted their daughters to have abortions, "because they threaten physical violence on the kids."

This is the sad outcome of a law that backers claim protects children. And those same providers suggested than teens were looking instead to online herbal remedies or drugs that would induce an abortion naturally instead of visiting a clinic.

Good parenting is the best deterrent against both teen pregnancy and teen abortions. Sadly, there is no legislation that can make this happen on it's own.