scant drop seen in abortion rate when parents are told....

ok, so this from the nytimes.....

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.

Jeff Topping for The New York Times

Cathi Herrod said that getting parents involved in minors' medical decisions was reason enough for Arizona to pass an abortion consent law.

Jane Bovard, who runs an abortion clinic in North Dakota, said that many of the parents were urging their daughters to have abortions.

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.

I read this on-line yesterday....and have contemplated it several times today........especially when one considers south dakota's pending ban on all abortions, including those involving rape and incest, except to save the mother's life.......well, isn;t that nice......mamma will have to go to court to prove that her life is in danger.....if she is unconscious or otherwise incapacitated then she is in some deep shit.........and so the naral folks and the planned parenthood folks will go to court over the issue...and after a time it will reach the supremes......and we shall see how things go........on the other hand......walmart last week agreed to carry the morning after pill after pressure from larger more liberal states....given that walmart may be the only pharmacy available in some areas....and to not carry the product was a violation of some federal statute.....i must clarify, for the record....that i would be ever so happy if abortions were un-necessary.....that every person having sex was protected against unwanted pregnancy.....but so long as we refrain from marrying off our 14-year-olds before they can have premarital sex.....we must provide them safe and available birth control products.......and do whatever it takes to stregnthen them emotionally so they do not see sex as their only source of positive physical connection..................for all the hype for brokeback mountain this year.......as a taboo-breaking film......i want to remind the academy of a film from last year, starring imelda staunton, called vera drake.....in which she plays an abortionist........it is the sort of movie that i could not actually go to see......but i applaud her gumption in making such a film.......i have said this once and i will say it again.....my children are related to a woman who died from complications of an illegal abortion.....and i believe with all my heart that reasonable people must do what it takes to keep those days from returning to this free society...............but i digress from the nytimes article about parental notification......it does not reduce the rate of abortion.....once told...reasonable parents do not desire the life of unwed motherhood and the poverty that comes along with it for their daughters......regardless of red state/blue state status........we are not willing to sacrifice our daughters to marriage at 14 to prevent premarital sex, nor to lifelong poverty should unintended pregnancy occur.....at least while privacy is still insured............people may talk right to life, but when their daughters are involved, they don't always walk the talk..............