No Country for Young Women: America’s War on Girls’ Bodies
There’s no easy answer as to why some judges in the United States would rather force a teenager to have a baby than allow her to have an abortion. It’s clearly not about logic—a girl deemed too immature to have a minutes-long medical procedure surely can’t be adult enough to raise a child for eighteen years. It’s not about the best interest of the state, or what’s best for the girl herself. Yet over and again abortion policies dictate that we ignore common sense—not to mention basic decency—and mandate that girls carry pregnancies they don’t want. (Women, too, of course—but for now let’s focus on the young among us.)
Some girls are lucky—they live in states without parental notification and consent laws, or have legal guardians who care about their bodily autonomy and right to decide if and when to become a parent. But many girls do not have this good fortune.
One young woman in Nebraska—a 16-year-old ward of the state—has just been forced to carry a pregnancy she does not want because a nearly all-male state Supreme Court says she should. Without legal guardians to protect her from state interference in her reproductive health, she will have a child against her will.
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