Here is the article:
Much has been said about 17-year-old Bristol Palin's pregnancy and the so-called "right" decision she made to choose parenting over abortion. But we should remember that what is the right decision for Bristol may not be the right decision for all young women with an unplanned pregnancy.
Bristol is fortunate to have loving parents who support her decision, and all of our youth deserve the same. Loving parents who will support them in whatever decision they make. Sadly, this is not always true.
The decision about how to resolve an unplanned pregnancy, whether through abortion, adoption or parenting, is a deeply personal decision for a young woman. Most talk to their parents or other trusted adults, including their clergy. Many seek prayerful guidance from their own religious or spiritual traditions.
The notion that their religious tradition would insist that they continue their pregnancy is inaccurate. The mainline Protestant and Jewish denominations that are members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice support a woman in making whatever is the best decision for her, including abortion, according to her faith and her life circumstances.
Bristol is also fortunate that she has access to affordable pre-natal care, and that her family has the resources to make sure she has the support she needs to finish high school. Again, not all of our youth have these options, especially in primarily rural states like Alaska or New Mexico.
The Palin family has requested privacy for themselves and Bristol during this difficult time, something we all should have, even though Gov. Palin has chosen to put her family and their values under a spotlight.
Bristol and her future husband should be treated respectfully, but we as a nation now have the opportunity to learn more about an issue that most of us and most candidates would rather not face, our country's high teen pregnancy rate, the highest for all industrialized nations.
So before you make your decision about any candidate, state or federal, ask them if they support medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education for our youth.
We have a moral obligation to provide our youth with the best and most accurate information so that if they become sexually active, they can make an informed decision to protect themselves from unplanned pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Punitive, mandatory parental notification or consent laws do not reduce abortion and teen pregnancy; they only drive youth without loving, supportive parents to desperate measures when they are facing an unplanned pregnancy.
Young women who do not inform their parents may have very sound reasons. Often they fear physical abuse or abandonment, or their pregnancy may be the result of incest. Compassion demands that we not subject them to more trauma.
We should all work to provide our youth and their families with all of the resources they need to make their best decisions regarding sex and sexuality, in keeping with their own faith and values.
Joan Lamunyon Sanford is the executive director of New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
Another thing that really bothers me is that most right to life groups assume that the answer and solution to abortion is adoption. Adoption is not the answer to abortion. It has never been statistically proven to lower abortion rates.
A dear friend of mine posted this question on Yahoo Answers.
Do you consider adoption to be an alternative to abortion? What facts have you to support that it lowers the rates of abortions?
Additional Details
Sorry, that should have been abortion rates are not reduced by adoption. there is nothing to support this assertion at all.One commenter left this one. Yes I am a target for her.
You will get 2 different answers depending if that person thinks abortion is wrong or right. When a girl/woman gets pregnant there are 3 choices that she has to make. Either she will parent, she will abort or she will place for adoption. I counseled women who were in pregnancies that they were not too happy about, for over 10 years, and I can tell you that adoption is an alternative to abortion when the girl/woman decides that she would not be able to raise her children at all. If a woman decides for a fact that she cannot raise her child, she has 2 options.- I had many women change their mind from abortion to adoption. It is very interesting to me that a lot of people don't think that it is an alternative. I think the reason some people think that it isn't is because they are trying to justify abortion.
To Amy and others who believe the way that she does- "yes, many woman are choosing to keep their babies, and that is wonderful- however, there would be 4,000 babies a day available for adoption if abortions would cease. So don't say that that abortion has not decreased the number adoptions today, because it has. out of those 4,000 abortions only 3% are for rape and health of mother- the other 96% is because "the mom is not ready to parent".
Both myself, and my 2 children are adopted, and we could have been on of those 4,000 a day, but praise God, our birth moms chose the alternative.
I no longer counsel at the clinic however, I can tell you from personal experience as well that adoption is a great alternative for abortion. My 2 adopted children could have been aborted- their birth moms new beyond a shadow of a doubt that they could raise their children, but the alternative of aborting their children was not an option- so the only ALTERNATIVE LEFT- was adoption. Why is it so hard to understand?
Okay the Catholics recently did a study. They discovered something shocking. The economy has more effect on all of these three choices than abortion or adoption. The economy. Wow hard to believe. When you have a sucky economy as we do now, then abortions increase. When you have a good economy where people are able to care for their children, then abortions decrease. Geez ya think. Evidently that isn't the only study that is out there.
One thing this commenter needs to understand. No woman owes another woman her child.
4 comments:
Amy, I think the writer knows how political this is... And she/he put them in alphabetic order.
I have seen this done in different blogs/articles.
I do realize that. Not everyone everyone does that. Its usually one or the other is first. When they discuss a woman's options, its like parenting is ignored. It drives me insane.
I'm so tired of hearing "I'm not ready to parent". Well TOUGH-if you are old enough to have sex, then you are old enough to take the responsiblity for your actions. Granted, there are some girls that are having relations WAY too young, and I think parents have to be stricter during those years. Much, much stricter. Watch your 13 & 14 year old like a hawk-make damn sure they are where they say they are, and not alone with some boy. The problem with this entire issue is that Americans are lazy-too lazy to lay down the law to tweens and young teenagers, and too lazy to enact in integrity & morality and do what they are supposed too, which is bust your ass taking care of the child you created, like you are supposed too. Abortion or Adoption? How about NEITHER.
"No woman owes another woman her child."
Amen!
The person who responded on Yahoo said there would be 4,000 more babies avaialable for adoption if abortion ceased. So what they really want is to increase "supply" - that's what I get from this statement.
They don't want to prevent unplanned preganancy, they don't want to help mothers keep their children, they don't want fathers to take responsility. They simply want to increase the supply of babies. Sick.
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