Teen girls exercise their "right to choose"

As a pro-lifer in the abortion debate, I have heard the term "right to choose" quite often. Don't worry, I'm not going to discuss the abortion debate at this point, but...

...the recent news story of a pregnancy pact by some teenage girls in Massachusetts got me thinking about "right to choose". Now, I'm not saying that teenage girls should go around getting pregnant - quite the opposite, actually - but ...

... aren't they exercising their "right to choose"?

A "right to choose" implies a choice. Well, they made theirs. Their "pact" implies an actual decision to get and remain pregnant - despite the numerous artificial birth control devices that are at their disposal in their school or at their local Planned Parenthood. "Damn," PP must be saying. "There goes some lost revenue!"

There's a message here somewhere about why teenagers would make such a pact, despite having been bombarded with messages to the contrary all their young lives. Think of this: The "forbidden fruit" argument might be at play here. PP and their supporters have long been saying, "NO! Thou shalt not get pregnant!" that perhaps pregnancy has now been given a "forbidden fruit" appeal to these young folks.

Before you start accusing me of trying to slant things with simplistic arguments so as to favor my side of the debate, I will state here that yes, this issue is more complex than that. There's more than a "forbidden fruit" thing going on. And yet, this shows that these young ladies - and no doubt many, many more - are tuning out the pro-choice side, this despite the ubiquitous presence of the pro-choice side of the debate in our nation's public schools.

Pro-lifers have long been accused of thinking only of the unborn and not the mothers who are in the dire circumstances. Well, maybe this story shows that pro-choicers are more concerned with those women "right to choosing" abortion rather than pregnancy. Maybe it's time for the pro-choicers to listen to these young ladies as well.