Religious freedom and family life: reflections on the right to choose.

PIP: Family integrity, family life and family privacy, and parental authority are the arguments used to convince legislators to pass parental consent and notification laws and judges to uphold them. Those who favor these laws argue that the government is interfering with family life and undermining parental authority when it permits minors to get abortions without parental consent or notification. It is time to challenge the family integrity argument. Too often the notion is accepted that abortion is unique in the sense that it is unlike all other constitutionally protected rights. Imagine a 16-year-old girl who lives in a rigidly orthodox Catholic family who is never encouraged to read and think, even about religious laws. One day she discovers that that she is pregnant. This young woman thinks of her dreams of the future and her ability to care for and raise a child. Ultimately, she decides to have an abortion. She finds a local doctor and clinic and has an abortion without her parents' knowledge or consent. Carol Gilligan, in her book, "In a Different Voice," examines the psychological development of women. Her studies reveal that, for women, decisions about pregnancy are among the most significant in providing opportunities for moral development, personal growth, and the separation from family that achieving adulthood requires. Yet, some would deny women that opportunity to make these decisions by requiring parental consent or notice. The right to choose abortion is not all that different from other constitutionally protected individual rights. Both free speech and the right to choose provide unequalled opportunities for people to become responsible, thinking citizens. Possibly abortion is not unique, since many decisions affect and involve other's lives. What is unique is that moral reasoning is not attributed to young women who must make choices about pregnancy.^ieng