I read with interest that New York State law currently prohibits children under fourteen years of age from using indoor tanning booths, and that teens from fourteen to seventeen years of age require a parent’s permission. It was even more interesting to read that New York is now seeking to completely ban those under sixteen from using indoor tanning booths. So if a fourteen-year-old girl walks into a tanning salon and asks for a tan without a parent’s permission, she is turned away. But if that same girl should enter a Planned Parenthood clinic and request an abortion, she may legally receive an abortion and her parents not only don’t need to give permission but do not even have to be notified afterwards. What logic is there in our laws whereby a girl cannot receive a tan, an ear-piercing, or an aspirin from a school nurse without a parent’s permission, but she can have an abortion?

Even though tanning salon owners claim that when properly used, tanning salons are not harmful, the government feels the need to protect young people who may not understand the potential dangers of getting an artificial tan before the prom from their lack of information by banning them from using tanning salons. But the same girl who is pregnant, frightened, is not thinking about the serious medical, psychological, and spiritual dangers associated with abortion – including death – without being required by law to receive any information whatsoever as to what the procedure entails and how it may affect her physically or otherwise, is deemed by the government fully competent to make a rational, informed decision without the input of her parents. Something is very wrong here.

The pro-abortion forces are continually talking about “pro-choice” and helping a woman make the best choice for her. But to make a clearly proper choice, does she not need to have all the information necessary to weigh the pros and cons of an abortion and decide what is the best option for her? And when a teenage girl is pregnant and frightened, is this not more than ever a time where she needs the support and input of her parents to help her make the choice that is best for her? How could we logically ban a suntan but permit an abortion? There is only one possible reason why Planned Parenthood opposes Parental Notification  and Informed Consent – the parents may not permit her to have an abortion, or the girl may choose to have her baby instead. It is now amply evident that “pro-choice” is a lie. Planned Parenthood and their similar groups are interested in only one thing – seeing how many abortions they can get performed.