. Although having an abortion requires a young woman to raise a large sum of money on short notice, once the abortion is performed there are no financial obligations in the future.The interpersonal consequences of an abortion center mainly on the possible damage to a young womens relationships if her abortion is against others wishes or moral standards. For example, if the father of the baby wants to keep the child and the woman disagrees, there can be some conflicting factors. Another example would be that if the parents of the teenager dont want her to have an abortion because of religious reasons or maybe they are afraid of possible damage of the procedure, and the teenager goes ahead with the abortion anyway, they may be very angry at her and it could cause some family problems.At the present time, a teenager in most cases has control over the interpersonal consequences of having an abortion because she decides who should be able to know the information that she is seeking or has had an abortion. In other words, a teenager can keep her abortion a secret by either not telling anyone about it or by telling certain trustworthy people.LENGTH OF GESTATIONThe length of gestation at which abortion is performed is a critical factor in evaluating the medical and psychological context of abortion. Younger women obtained abortions later in pregnancy than older women. The younger the teenager, the more likely the delay. For the 32 states reporting to the CDC in 1980, women under 19 years of age accounted for 29% of all abortions but accounted for more than 40% of abortions performed at more than 16 weeks of gestation. Of abortions obtained by adolescents aged 15 or less, 34% were performed at eight weeks or earlier in gestation, compared with 41% among 15-19 year olds and 51% among women aged 20-24. (Melton 1986:56)NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS Parental notification requirements, or the belief that such requirements exist even when cli...
