On June 6th, Teen Vogue published “How to Get an Abortion If You Don't Want to Tell Your Parents,” a response by Nona Willis Aronowitz to a 16-year-old girl scared to tell her pro-life parents she is pregnant. (The article has since been retitled, "How to Get an Abortion If You're a Teen.")
I answer calls from scared 16-year-old girls all the time, and I find this article alarming in many ways.
The whole article is full of non-truths, contradictions, and some completely illogical statements. It’s quite a read.
Three ways Aronowitz' article is dangerous for teenagers
Tweet This: Three ways @nona Aronowitz' article is dangerous for teenagers. @StupidRock
1. If teens are not mature enough to consider sex may create a baby and that they may have to talk to their parents about pregnancy, maybe teens should be encouraged to not have sex.
The author chooses to treat pregnancy as some unfortunate side effect that is easily taken care of via an abortion. In fact, abortion is treated as the logical, default solution if you simply do not want to be pregnant or generally feel unready to give birth.
But Aronowitz doesn’t stop there. She makes fun of pro-life people as she paints overriding parental consent to get an abortion as an “infantilizing process.” She writes, “it’s only logical that if teens are mature enough to become parents, they are mature enough to decide whether or not they want to give birth.” She is attacking the view of pro-life parents here, implying if they oppose abortion, they must think their children are mature enough to parent. Her nonsensical statement shows her complete lack of understanding of the pro-life view, which has nothing at all to do with maturity or readiness to parent, and everything to do with opposing the direct killing of innocent humans.
Making any decision, including the decision to have sex, before you have contemplated any of the possible consequences is simply not a wise action. Additionally, the abortion Aronowitz is treating as a simple solution may hurt these girls emotionally and physically in the long run. How is this empowering?
2. The lack of communication between parents and children and children’s fear of the response of their parents is incredibly sad.
This is an issue Aronowitz touches on, but really just moves past without offering any help. She says even though her mom was pro-choice, “still I was terrified to turn to her for help.” Aronowitz admits she did eventually tell her mom of her pregnancy scare, and later quotes a doctor who encourages teen girls to tell their parents about their pregnancy. But she does not share why she was scared, how she gained the courage to finally tell her mom or any guidelines for talking to parents.
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I talk to girls ages 14-17 all the time who are scared to tell their parents they are or may be pregnant. Sometimes the fear is their parents will not allow them to get an abortion; sometimes the fear is their parents will make them get an abortion. Occasionally a girl will be genuinely concerned about being kicked out of the house. Most of the time, though, the fear is their parents will be angry and “freak out” because they are not aware their child is having sex.
This speaks to a larger cultural issue at hand. Mothers, fathers, and guardians need to realize the hesitancy their children may have discussing subjects like sex and pregnancy, and work to keep an open dialogue about them with their teens.
Teens should not fee scared their parents are going to suddenly stop loving them simply for becoming pregnant. If more teen girls felt less fear of talking to their parents about the possibility of pregnancy, we would not even have a market for an article like this.
Tweet This: ”None of this @teenvogue article addresses the reality of #abortion.”@StupidRock
3. None of this article addresses the reality of abortion.
This is the bottom line, the one at the heart of this whole abortion issue.
Abortion terminates the condition of pregnancy by killing a living human being. When you keep this simple fact in mind, articles like this become void of reason or logic. Appeal to emotion all you want, none of that changes the fact of what abortion does to another human.
We should not be giving any woman of any age the encouragement to end the life of the innocent human growing inside her. Instead, we should offer encouragement, hope, love, and support, to show her that the options which do not include her having her child killed are possible to attain.
She can learn how to parent. She can place her child in a loving home. She can give life and still be successful, still finish school, still have her job or career, still be happy, and the pregnancy help community can support her on her journey.
