Letters to the Editor: Parental notification laws are unnecessary

I am writing in response to Tara Stroll’s column “Women deserve right to informed choice” published on Nov. 7 (page 5). While I fundamentally agree with Ms. Stroll that women deserve to have all of the information about abortion before making a choice, I do not agree that this extends to include the creation of parental notification laws.

Parental notification laws make a lot of sense on the surface because most people are rational and caring and think that if it was their child, they would like to know about the situation so that they could help them through it. Not all parents are rational and caring, however. I think that most teenagers facing the reality of an unplanned pregnancy will go to their parents for advice, even if they fear their parents will be angry with them. Those who do not go to their parents generally have very good reasons for not doing so. They may fear physical abuse, being thrown out on the streets to fend for themselves or being forced into a course of action that they would find personally devastating. Then there are the horror cases where the father of the baby may be a parent or sibling and the pregnant teenager may seriously fear for their lives, whether or not that fear is justified.

If we are going to treat all women as adults by informing them of the risks and consequences of any course of action in dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and allow them to make their own choice in the matter, then we should also trust them in making the choice to inform their parents or not inform them as they see fit. It is difficult to know the situation women with an unplanned pregnancy are in and while it is a good idea to inform them about all of their choices, it is not a good idea to compound their situation by potentially forcing them to put themselves in harm’s way.

Kerry Johnson Pegoraro COM ’94