ABSTRACT
Laws requiring parental consent before a girl under age 18 can obtain an abortion have won endorsement by the US Supreme Court, the US Senate, all three presidential candidates, 20 state legislatures and 80 percent of the American public—and are even seen by many pro-abortion choice adults as a “reasonable compromise.” Parental consent is already the most popular restriction enacted by states and Congress. In upholding such laws, justices again swept aside monumental realities regarding abortion patterns among teenagers, the family conditions of girls who cannot inform their parents, and the miserable experiences of states with such laws. Parental involvement laws do not promote parental involvement. The laws’ chief effects are delay, fear, stress, expense, hazard, forced mother-hood and—now that the Supreme Court has invited states to experiment with harsher restrictions against teenagers and other vulnerable women—a return to dangerous illicit and self-induced measures.
