Grounded in the reality of their lives: listening to teens who make the abortion decision without involving their parents.

Abstract

Interdisciplinary in nature, this article presents the findings of a research study focusing on the decision making process of young women who choose to have an abortion without involving their parents. Drawing upon in-depth interviews, the article allows teens to be heard within the context of their own life circumstances. The stories they tell reflect the complexity of their lives, and the depth of their feelings about becoming pregnant, the decision to abort, and their families. The article examines the complex and multi-dimensional reasoning abilities of these young women, and the weight and meaning of their decision not to disclose their pregnancy and abortion plans to a parent. The interviews are situated within a broader legal context, and provide a rich counter-narrative to the Court's limited representation of adolescent reality in the minors' abortion rights cases. The article questions the Court's construction of this reality, and challenges its assumption that young women facing an unplanned pregnancy are incapable of making their own reproductive decisions. Raising further questions about the Court's insistence upon the need for adult involvement in the decision-making process, the article also examines the medical decision-making rights of teens, most notably with respect to pregnancy, and research on the cognitive decision making abilities of adolescents.