Abortion Alternatives to Pregnant Teens

An unplanned preg­nancy can be a trau­matic expe­ri­ence for a preg­nant teen. It becomes even more daunt­ing when the young­ster has to decide what is to be done. Despite polit­i­cal talk for and against abor­tion and other alter­na­tives to preg­nant teen, ulti­mately it boils down to a per­sonal inti­mate deci­sion – some­thing that is never done with­out endur­ing emo­tion turmoil.

All the alter­na­tives – abor­tion or going ahead with the rais­ing of the baby or allow­ing a third party to adopt the infant – all carry the weight of per­sonal sac­ri­fice and tears.

Accord­ing to teen preg­nancy sta­tis­tics, in USA of all the abor­tion cases 19% are from the preg­nant teen cat­e­gory. The aver­age age is now drop­ping from 19 to 17 years. Nearly half the preg­nant teen abor­tions con­ducted in a year are on females below the age of 25. Of this group the high­est num­ber come from those aged 18 to 19.

Cur­rently there are 21 states that man­date parental per­mis­sion to be given before a teenager is allowed to undergo abor­tion. In 18 states this is not com­pul­sory. In 14 states par­ents have to be noti­fied before any abor­tion is per­formed on a preg­nant teen. Here per­mis­sion is not required but noti­fi­ca­tion is a must.

Abor­tion is legal in Amer­ica. The facts related to teen abor­tion show that although the rate of such preg­nan­cies has recently dropped since the last decade, the per­cent­ages have actu­ally spiked.

The ten­der years of the preg­nant teens make them more vul­ner­a­ble to post-abortion infec­tions like pelvic and uterus inflam­ma­tions known as PID and endometri­tis respec­tively. It results from sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted dis­ease that has not been diag­nosed. It pen­e­trates the uterus at the time of abor­tion or through minus­cule organ­isms on the sur­gi­cal instru­ments that are pushed inside the uterus.

Preg­nant teens under­go­ing abor­tion are many times more likely to resort to sui­cide in com­par­i­son to adults abort­ing. Sui­ci­dal ten­den­cies and incli­na­tions are directly asso­ci­ated with teen abor­tions. Thus a preg­nant teen must go for an abor­tion only when it is an absolute must.