Teen Vogue, what was once a magazine about clothes and makeup for young girls, has continued a trend of pushing abortion on underage, impressionable readers. In the latest example of the abortion mob at work in the media, Teen Vogue published an article detailing 39 stories from mothers who have undergone elective abortion. Each story, according to Planned Parenthood’s friend Teen Vogue, is “a reminder that abortion is not up for debate.”
What the stories actually show is the same thing that other “empowering” compilations of abortion stories demonstrate: abortion is chosen out of fear and the abortion industry participates in systemic dehumanization of the preborn and abuse of girls and women.
One woman recounts undergoing an abortion at just 14-years-old after suffering sexual abuse by a family member. Instead of the abortion mill reporting the crime to authorities and connecting a young, abused child with help, she underwent the abortion and was returned to her situation, as so many victims of abuse are at the hands of the abortion industry. Only years later while participating in therapy did the woman realize the abuse she had suffered.
Such stories are sadly common. The abortion industry has a documented history of cooperating with criminals and covering up the abuse and exploitation of young girls. Teens suffering abuse and reading Teen Vogue would never know to question that abortion is a “solution” to their situation and would never know that real help is available.
Beyond the abuse with which the abortion industry is complicit, many abortion stories also reveal abuse and negligence in the abortion industry. One woman recalls, “After my second abortion I woke up crying and the doctor was yelling at me for crying.” Such disturbing stories of abortionists, nurses, and supposed abortion counselors belittling mothers and demanding that they not cry during the painful and difficult experience of ending a child’s life under duress or coercion are not hard to find. What is odd is including such frank and honest depictions of the abortion industry in a compilation of stories claiming that abortion is “important” and “empowering.”
Despite the reality of abuse victims being funneled through the predatory abortion industry without assistance, many of the stories bemoan parental consent laws which require minors to obtain consent from a parent or guardian before undergoing an elective abortion. In Texas, the abortion industry has for years manipulated a judicial bypass loophole to get underage girls into abortion mills without their parents’ consent. This is depicted as unquestionably good in the Teen Vogue stories with one woman who underwent an elective abortion without her parent’s knowledge writing how fortunate she was to obtain a judicial bypass. Nonetheless, the process outraged her. She said, “The judge got to decide my entire future, before I was able to make any decisions of my own.” There is no acknowledgment of the fact that a young teen decided the entire future of a preborn child without the counsel of the adults most invested in her life.
Although the abortion mob has tried to ignore the child in the womb, there is no avoiding the child in any discussions of abortion, however “celebratory” they claim to be. Disturbingly, the collection of stories included several that were very cruel and derogatory when discussing the possibility of placing a child in an adoptive family. One woman wrote, “A thing that struck me in the years following was that I, and the other women I knew who had abortions, more or less forgot about them, whereas the only woman I knew back then who gave a baby up for adoption never ceased thinking about him, broke down every year on his birthday and wondered about every child she saw who was her son’s age.” The experience of regret and depression also affects many mothers who have undergone abortion. The abortion date or the day a baby would have been born can be painful reminders for women who have undergone abortion, and many live with regret for the rest of their lives. Likewise, many mothers who have made the selfless and heroic decision to place a child in an adoptive family found the experience healing and life-giving.
Many of the abortion stories featured in Teen Vogue are from young women only days or years away from an abortion experience. Many use the word “freedom” to describe their abortions. However, abortion regret is real. Sometimes only after welcoming other children or discovering the inability to conceive another child, mothers come to an understanding of whom they lost in an abortion procedure.
Teen Vogue giving teen girls a skewed, rose-tinted glasses view of the abusive and predatory abortion industry as a quick and painless “solution” to a crisis pregnancy is a disservice to young women everywhere. Mothers deserve to know that their child is fully human, deserving of life and love. Most of all, they deserve to know that options exist and abortion is not “necessary,” “empowering,” or “something to celebrate.” They deserve to know the truth.
