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Originally Posted by matthew330
"Her hips are not yet widened enough to safely pass a child, her body overall has not strengthened to the point where she can handle the stress of carrying the child or delivering it."
Perhaps with any luck evolution will catch up and women won't biologically be able to conceive untill their old enough to vote.
" Do you really know the scope of importance that proper nutrition (esp calcium and folic acid) has during pregnancy?"
you've done a good job of enlightening me tonight. You've already identified potential risks, identified excellent measures to keep these risks to a minimum. In the event one happens, i'm sure the "modern" medical community will think of something. About the easiest medical adventure i've seen. You've single handedly almost eliminated the need for 'em.
( i misspoke when i said treatable...i meant preventable, but the complications when they do arise are treatable, easy or not -and the same can't be said for complications with abortion - which is why i'm not buying your argument that this is a major concern of yours)
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as i graduate from medical school in 1 week, i'll go ahead and call myself a medical professional.
i'd say at a minimum, abortion and a full term pregnancy followed with a delivery have the same risks. at worse, i would say that a full term pregnancy followed by delivery is more dangerous.
risks of abortion: missed/incomplete abortion (leaving behind fetal parts), infection, sepsis, uterine tear. having been present for a few abortions on my ob/gyn rotation, and seeing women in clinic and otherwise who had abortions in the past, the only real risk i saw was with medical abortions (they don't always work, and the lady ends up needing to get a surgical abortion).
risks of pregnancy: preeclampsia (hypertension, protein in the urine, edema), eclampsia (throw in seizures), gestational diabetes, infection, prolapsed uterus, iron deficiency anemia
risks of delivery: vaginal tears, uterine rupture, need to go to c-section (which has an increased risk of uterine rupture), infection, sepsis.
there may have been some risks i missed in pregnancy and delivery. and i also didn't mention the potential outcome of these risks on the baby at delivery either. add to that, many of the risks of pregnancy (those outside of infection and a prolapsed uterus) end up portending an outcome later in life (gestational diabtes begets diabetes mellitus, preeclampsia begets hypertension/high blood pressure, iron deficiency anemia begets itself).
the risks of both abortion and pregnancy are real. neither one is an easy decision. both can have, in worst case scenario, horrible outcomes. but in the "real world", i've seen worse outcomes with pregnancy and delivery. that's not to say that women shouldn't go through pregnancy and delivery, but i think it's potentially a more difficult course, and a much more complicated biologic process then many people like to think or believe.
edit: another interesting note is the mother of the 13 year old has been on the news (at least here in the south) saying that she doesn't want the girl to have the abortion, and is going to scrape together the money to get a lawyer to get it stopped. strange, since the girl is no longer in her custody, but also shows how sad the girl's situation is.
as far as the adoption angle, i suppose the baby, if she decided to have it, could be adopted. but damn, the potential 13 year old mother is still of an adoptable age as well! but most studies show that children after the age of 4 or 5 are very difficult to adopt out.
if you're against abortion, i respect that. but realize that at the end of the day, the state will be paying for whatever transpires either way, be it abortion, or pregnancy, delivery, and potentially 2 children in "the system".