It’s always been hard for teens seeking abortions
  August 23, 2022 Valar morghulis Meteor readers, If that greeting confused you, then I gather you’re not one of the 10 million viewers who tuned in to watch House of the Dragon (the Game of Thrones prequel series) on Sunday. Which is fine, we all have our own thing, and apparently, my thing involves fawning over Matt Smith in a long flowing white wig as he’s waffling between villain and unloved elf man.  My doctoral thesis on how this fictional universe is not anti-feminist is forthcoming. For today’s edition, we’re flying our dragons over the glittering sea of news, so let’s get to it. Valar dohaeris, Shannon Melero (of house Targaryan) P.S. If you’re a New York, Florida, or Oklahoma resident, it’s an election day for you. If you haven’t already, find your polling station and VOTE. You can take this newsletter with you and read it in line.  WHAT’S GOING ONWe’re going to miss you: Dr. Anthony Fauci, a beacon of hope and common sense during the early days of COVID, announced Monday that he would be stepping down from his position as White House Chief Medical Adviser in December. He is NOT retiring but simply “[pursuing] other directions” in his career—which is impressive because he is fully 81 years old and has committed five decades of his life to public service. But in the government, at least: his watch has ended (sorry, last Thrones reference, I promise). Naturally, haters in the Republican party are still threatening an investigation into Fauci’s exact role in the government’s less-than-stellar pandemic response. Here’s what I know: it wasn’t this elderly man who was encouraging me to drink bleach and continue working as if COVID wasn’t real.  AND:
 LET KIDS CHOOSETeens also need abortion rights. Why have we made it so hard for them?BY CINDI LEIVE  A CALIFORNIA TEEN HAVING TO DO THE HARD WORK OF FIGHTING FOR HER RIGHTS BECAUSE THE ADULTS KEEP DROPPING THE BALL. (IMAGE BY RONAN TIVONY VIA GETTY IMAGES) You probably read the headlines last week: A “parentless” 16-year-old in Florida had been denied the right to end her pregnancy by a court that found her “too immature” to make that decision. “I have no words…just rage,” read one typical comment on The Meteor’s post on the subject. “Too immature to have an abortion but mature enough to be a mother at 16?” asked another. “DA FUCK is this ruling?” Excellent question, but if you think that the answer starts on June 24, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—nope. For decades, teens have had to jump through flaming hoops of humiliation to end their pregnancies. Florida, in fact, has not outlawed abortion—but it is among the at least 36 states with measures requiring teens to notify or secure the permission of one or both parents in order to receive care. The first time I got enraged about this was almost three decades ago, in the 1990s, when, as a fresh-out-of-college editorial assistant, I sat in an editorial meeting at Glamour magazine and pitched a story on the newly emerging parental notification laws. (The knowledge that I wouldn’t have been at that conference-room table at all without the abortion I’d been able to get my freshman year was a motivating if unspoken factor.) Since then, most states have rolled out notification or consent laws—with “judicial bypass” exceptions that allow teens who don’t want to or can’t tell their parents to petition a judge instead for permission to end a pregnancy. The laws became the norm, and many Americans got used to them—an apparently “acceptable” infringement of rights, like the repro equivalent of a drinking age. Except they’re not. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes these restrictions, pointing out that most teens who can tell a parent about their abortion decision do (I did), and those who opt not to have solid and sometimes terrifying reasons. Plus, the judicial bypass process, meant to make things better, is only as good as the judge you get: In one study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2019, teenagers who went through that system in Texas described it as “intimidating” and “scary,” full of judges who “preached” at them. “We found the bypass process functions as a form of punishment and allows state actors to humiliate adolescents for their personal decisions,” concluded the authors. Just six months ago, another Florida judge denied a 17-year-old an abortion, citing her low GPA as justification. (Don’t try to think through the logic.) Now the horror of post-Roe America has made things worse. For one thing, judicial bypass could disappear as an option, potentially even in states where abortion is legal. And if abortion is illegal in a state, teenagers there are less likely than adults to have money to travel out of state; less likely to be able to rent a car in their name; and less likely to be able to find a telehealth option, usually only available to those over 18. In other words, it’s bad. But—it’s been bad. And this is another reminder that, as Monica Simpson of SisterSong puts it, Roe was the floor. We don’t want to return to a world where legal abortion exists only for the wealthy, the white, or the appropriately “mature,” whatever that means. We want, and need, access for everyone, teenagers included. We should never have gotten used to less.  Everyone needs abortion funds. Teens really need abortion funds. Find your local one at abortionfunds.org.  Cindi Leive is the co-founder of The Meteor, the former editor-in-chief of Glamour and Self, and the author or producer of best-selling books including Together We Rise.  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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