What if a girl is too scared to tell her parents?
It would be the unusual girl who wouldn’t be nervous, even frightened, about telling her parents of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. She’d also be apprehensive about telling them about flunking out in school, wrecking a friend’s or the family’s car, or being arrested by authorities for possession of drugs. But the fact that a girl is very reluctant to tell her parents something doesn’t justify a public policy that keeps parents in the dark about a serious and dangerous situation their young daughter is in. The most common reasons cited by teens for not telling a parent about their pregnancy are fear of disappointing their parents and causing them distress—not fear of physical abuse.
