Well, it's not like anti-abortionists ever put much thought into the consequences of their actions anyway

Posted by Raznor

Via an Ampersand link thread, comes this post over at Well-Timed Period about parental notification laws leading to coerced abortions. [note: the article linked to at WTP has since been removed]

The conventional wisdom about parental-notification and consent laws was that they would cut down on abortion, which is why anti-abortion activists loved them. But earlier this year the New York Times ran a jaw-dropping analysis that found the laws had no significant impact on teenage abortion rates.

The statutes did, however, have one unintended consequence. "We have parents who come in and want to force their daughters to have an abortion," Chelian says. "Their attitude is, "If I can prevent you from having one, I can force you to have one.' And we have to tell them that that's not so. The mother will say, "She's 14, I'm already taking care of her sister's baby, I can't take care of another one.' You know that it will be really hard for everyone."

This, to me, makes sense. At least if we're to accept the twisted logic of Parental Notification Laws. If girls under the age of 18 don't have the cognitive ability to understand the consequences of an abortion, they sure as hell don't have the ability to grasp the consequences of undergoing pregnancy, childbirth and then have the ability to raise a child. Or, to put it another way, if girls are to be treated as the physical property of parents to the extent that parents have the right to enforce childbirth, then certainly this right extends to the parents being able to enforce termination.

Or maybe it's time we just decided to do away with laws that treat women and girls as nonhuman property, and admit that anyone who's pregnant has a better idea than anyone else what to do about it.

And while I'm on the subject, let me just add a big fuck you to John McCain. Please dear God, if 2008 results in President McCain, then I give up on America.