Dealing with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is a difficult experience for anyone. But for teenagers, who have to juggle increasing, and increasingly complicated, financial and legal barriers to abortion access, “difficult” becomes nearly impossible. And it shouldn’t be.

For instance, 21 states require parental consent before a teenager can have an abortion; 13 mandate that at least one parent be notified; and five states mandate both consent and notification. States that require parental notification and consent for a teenager to have a child? Zero.

Surely if we believe young people are mature enough to parent or responsible enough to carry a baby to term, and thoughtful enough to make the decision to put a baby up for adoption without parental or judicial intervention (though there are five states that require parental involvement if a minor puts a child up for adoption), they should also have to right to decide whether or not to get a 10-minute medical procedure.

But lawmakers insist on enacting more and more roadblocks in between a young woman and her ability to choose what the rest of her life will look like.

In Texas, for example, new rules governing judicial bypasses for abortion – which allow young people to get permission for an abortion from a judge rather than a parent – went into effect on January 1. The US supreme court has previously ruled that the judicial bypass procedure must be anonymous and expeditious, but the new law in Texas requires teens to give the judge their names and addresses, and removes judicial deadlines from the process. That means that an anti-choice judge could forgo making a decision on whether to allow or prevent a teen’s abortion as long as necessary to ensure it’s too late for her to even get one.

Tina Hester, the executive director of Jane’s Due Process, a Texas nonprofit that provides legal counsel to pregnant teens, said in a statement: “judicial bypass protects vulnerable pregnant teens who cannot find or safely turn to a parent, but the legislature and Governor Abbott decided to go after abused and neglected teens by amending this law.”

Indeed, multiple studies show that most minors seeking abortions do tell their parents, and those who don’t want to consult their parents often are in fear of physical harm. Sometimes the teenager is a rape victim; sometimes, it’s even their parent or guardian who got the teenager in question pregnant.

When governor Abbott was set to sign the new rules into effect last summer, Hester described in the Houston Chronicle some of the young women her organization has helped: a 17-year old college student whose parents had died in a car accident; a minor who feared her religious father would kill her; young women who would be thrown out of their homes should their pregnancies be revealed at all.



Having a process that is speedy, private and reasonable-to-navigate is vital for young people who find themselves pregnant and are already fearful and vulnerable. This is especially true because, as a whole, teenagers are more likely to find out about their pregnancies later on than adults do, and if they are to avoid later abortions – which are riskier and more expensive, and which state legislatures often make more difficult to access – they need to be able to obtain services quickly.

It is unreasonable and illogical to expect that teens raise children or give birth and put them up for adoption but not be given the option to consider abortion. The desire for parents to be involved in important decisions in their children’s lives is understandable, but parental protectiveness cannot trump a person’s right to her own body and her own future.

We should do away with judicial bypasses altogether and let teens decide for themselves whether or not to carry a pregnancy. After all, part of the reason that teens face unwanted pregnancies to begin with is because adults have not served them well: we don’t make birth control accessible and affordable enough for young people, and we teach them ridiculous and false ideas about sex. It is not a coincidence that states that mandate abstinence-only education are also the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates.

Policies put in place by adults that know little of their lives do not help young people; allowing them to make informed choices does.