Dear Future President,

I’m writing to you concerning the issue of teen abortion. I think the penalties of abortion for minors should be demolished and the law requiring parental consent should fall to the ground. I also think the law mandating that minors be imprisoned for up to five years if they’re caught having sex needs to be changed.

This is a huge problem because teen pregnancies are a very common thing here in the U.S. Many high school students have to drop out of school because they are pregnant. Since many teens have to drop out of school, these girls can’t get a proper education, excel in school, or get a good job because of this problem. Furthermore, some teens who need an abortion can't get it because of the penalties of unlawful abortion in their state, and need approval from a court.

There are also many teens who need to get an abortion or else their parents will disown them. Teens who are disowned while pregnant may go into depression and end up committing suicide. Pregnancy is one of the leading causes of suicide for women. According to Advocates for youth, in 2014 alone, there were 249,078 babies born to teens between the age of 15-19 and 2,083 people between the ages of 15-54 committed suicide because they were depressed because of their pregnancy. This problem needs your attention because many teens are being deprived of proper education and many newborn babies of those teens are being deprived of a happy and fulfilling life in a family that can treat them the way they deserve I urge you to fix this issue by changing the law so that teens can get an abortion without penalty. Teens are old enough to know if they want to give birth or not. They do not need a parent to get involved in this personal and private matter that concerns them and their bodies.

Penalties for unlawful abortion are unnecessary because even though these penalties are there, they're not stopping or doing anything to fix teen pregnancies. These penalties only make it harder and inconvenient for teens to continue to have a proper education, figure out a better alternative for their unborn child, and keep a decent relationship with their parents. If a teen has to face the penalties of unlawful abortion, doing well in school is going to be nearly impossible. According to state law in California, the penalties for unlawful abortion is a $1,000 fine and/or 30 days in prison. If a teen has to spend a month in prison, school will be very difficult to catch up on. School work such as tests, projects, and presentations will be very hard for the student to make up. The teens will have a month of classwork and homework to finish and on top of that the teen will have her current assignments to do. That would be very stressful and that stress could end up forcing the teen to drop out of school. The fact that the teen ended up in jail will spread through the school and could result in her getting bullied. She might lose popularity, dignity, respect, and her social life. She may get bullied so much that it will lead into depression and that will end up with the girl committing suicide because of this depression. These consequences of unlawful abortion will make the teen have an unhappy, unsuccessful and an unfulfilling life or no life at all. Studies show that suicide is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 15 and 24. According to science and sensibility.org 90% of these people had a mental health problem which means they were under depression. If you get rid of the penalties of unlawful abortion, many teens can be saved from depression. Getting rid of the penalties of unlawful abortion can save lives of teenagers and young adults in the U.S. Getting rid of the penalties can give women the chance of getting a good education.

In the U.S, almost 350,000 minors become pregnant each year. That is a lot of cases of teens having to go to court to get there abortion approved. Because of this, many teens are having their life ruined in many ways because of this process. Plus, the process of going to court and getting the abortion is time consuming, difficult, and embarrassing. It takes a lot of time, effort, and money to get approval from a court. This will just make the teen’s life more painful to endure. (There was a lot of repetition here. I think you can move the remained of this paragraph up to an earlier paragraph).

Furthermore, teens should not need parent consent before getting abortion because some teens have to face the problem of being disowned by their parents, being kicked out of the house, being physically abused, or having a dysfunctional family situation that can end badly for the teen. According to a scientific study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information giving a live birth is more dangerous than abortion. So, kids should able to choose whether they want abortion or not because it safer than giving birth. According to the study by the NCBI it shows that the rate of people who gave live births, who died is 8.8 deaths out of 100,000 live births and 0.6 deaths out of 100,000 abortions. So the chances of dieing because of a live birth is 14 times higher that the chances of dying because of abortion. Hospitalization, because of abortion, is super rare and there is only a 0.3% chance that there will be major setback that will need to be taken care of in a hospital. Therefore, having abortion is safer than giving a live birth so parent consent is not necessary because the teen will be safe and is old enough to know if they want to take a chance with the title risk's there are. A study showed that 20% of teens who did not want to tell their parents about their pregnancy had a fear of being kicked out of their house and 8% of teens feared that they would be physically abused by their parents if they found out. Multiple teens have a very good to want to keep their parents from knowing about their pregnancy. Therefore, it would save many teens from a terrible childhood if they did not need parent consent before getting abortion.

All in all, teenagers need a happy and healthy life so they can succeed and make the world they live in a better place for them and others. If minors can get abortion without penalties of unlawful abortion, the worry of going to jail for five years because they are underage, and having to go to court, they can be happy and the child won't have to suffer a dreadful life if the teen can’t take care of the child. Teens won't miss out on high school or college and a high quality job because of a mistake they will regret making.