ate healthy family communication where it does not already exist. Laws that restrict minors access to abortion by mandating parental involvement actually harm teens and families they mean to protect, by increasing illegal and self-induced abortions, family violence, suicide, later abortions, and the teenage birthrate. The real agenda behind laws enabling parents to veto their daughters abortion decisions by requiring parental consent or notification is to deprive your women access to abortion. Opponents of choice are seeking to use the issue of parental consent to paint the pro-choice position as extremist and anti-family. The true pro-family position is the pro-choice position.Having a pro-choice viewpoint is not something that a person chooses overnight. I went through seven years of sexual education before I really understood abortion and could make an educated decision on my choice of sides. I have gone from being totally against the abortion procedure, to fully accepting it. I believe that before you can really say that you do not believe in abortion you have to come up against it in your own life. I know several women who have had abortions, not so they could party or have fun, but so they wouldn't ruin their entire lives because of a mistake. They weren't particularly overjoyed about it - no one is - and all are good, decent people who had one abortion when they were teenagers or in their twenties, and they are now happy, well-adjusted mothers. Someone wise once told me that in order to really understand a persons situation you have to walk ten miles in that persons shoes. I stand behind that firmly because I have been the person trying to walk in the shoes, and have turned into the owner of those shoes.The Planned Parenthood Federation Online has provided me with countless amounts of information and answers to questions that I have pondered. A particular part of the Planned Parenthood website that I found helpful was their histo...
