Who Decides? : The Abortion Rights of Teens

by Ehrlich, Shoshanna; Weddington, Sarah; Ehrlich, J. Shoshanna

• ISBN13: 9780275983215
• ISBN10: 0275983218
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-30
• Publisher: Greenwood Pub Group

Summary

The question of whether a young woman should be allowed to terminate a pregnancy without her parents' knowledge has been one of the most contentious issues of the post Roe v. Wade era. Parental involvement laws reach to the core of the parent-teen relationship in the highly contested realm of adolescent sexuality. This is the first book to examine in thorough detail the decision-making experiences of teens considering abortion. Shoshanna Ehrlich evaluates the Supreme Court's efforts to reconcile the historically based understanding of teens as dependent persons in need of protection with a more contemporary understanding of them as autonomous individuals with adult-like claims to constitutional recognition. Arriving at a compromise, the Court has made clear that, like adult women, teens have a protected right of choice, but that states may impose a parental involvement requirement. However, so that parents are not vested with veto power over their daughters' decisions, young women must be allowed to seek a waiver of the requirement. Integrating a wealth of social science literature, including in-depth interviews with 26 young women from Massachusetts who obtained court authorization for an abortion, the book raises important questions about the logic of a legal approach that requires young women to involve adults when they seek to terminate a pregnancy, but that allows them to make a decision to become mothers on their own.

Author Biography

J. Shoshanna Ehrlich is Associate Professor on the Legal Education Faculty of the University of Massachusetts-Boston's College of Public and Community Service.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Sarah Weddington
Series Foreword	xi
Judith Baer
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
A Crime No Longer: Roe v. Wade and the Constitutional Right of Choice	1	(32)
Young Women and the Constitutional Right of Choice	33	(16)
(Mis)constructing Adolescent Reality: Bellotti v. Baird Reconsidered	49	(22)
In Their Own Words	71	(12)
Facing an Unplanned Pregnancy: The Abortion Decision	83	(24)
Parents or the Judge?	107	(32)
Child or Adult? The Indeterminate Legal Status of Adolescents	139	(18)
Conclusion	157	(4)
Notes	161	(36)
Resources	197	(4)
Index	201