Wednesday, August 22, 2012

My Article Has Been Accepted!

I am delighted to report that I've found a home for my article, 16 and Pregnant: Minors' Consent to Abortion and Adoption.  It will be published in the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism!  Here's the abstract for the article:
A minor girl’s decision about the resolution of an unplanned pregnancy is a highly contested issue. Especially contentious is the minor’s ability to consent to an abortion without the assistance of an adult such as her parents or a judge. That issue has received substantial attention from policy makers, scholars, judges and legislators. Almost no attention has been paid, however, to the decision of a minor parent to continue her pregnancy, relinquish her constitutionally-protected parental rights and place a child for adoption. In 37 states, a minor’s abortion decision is regulated differently from the decision of an adult’s, while in only 15 states is a minor’s decision to relinquish parental rights and consent to adoption treated any differently from an adult’s decision. Informed by new neuro-scientific advances in the understanding of minors’ decision-making, as well as law’s traditional treatment of minors’ decision-making in areas other than abortion, together with the legal treatment of minors’ abortion decisions, there seems little justification for leaving minors’ decisions about adoption unregulated. The justifications often advanced for the need for parental involvement in a minor’s abortion decision – the physical/medical risks, the psychological/emotional effects, and the importance of the decision – apply with equal force to the decision about adoption placement. The decision about adoption placement also differs from the abortion decision in at least one crucial respect – the legal complexity of the adoption decision, which implicates constitutionally-protected parental rights, adds another layer to the medical and moral decisions present in abortion. All states should require that minor mothers have independent legal counsel when making the decision about relinquishment of parental rights and consent to adoption placement.
You can read excerpts of the article here and here and here and here and here and here and here, if you can't wait for its official publication sometime early in 2013.

I was especially gratified that among the acceptance for the article were 3 law reviews dedicated to women's issues, and will be appearing in a law review dedicated to women's issues -- a confirmation of my belief that adoption is a feminist issue (see here and here).

Thanks to everyone who commented on previous posts on these issues; such input was invaluable.

6 comments:

Reena said...

A huge congratulations making it through the review process!!!

Cassi said...

Congrats. It's a wonderful article!

Lorraine Dusky said...

Let me add my kudos. Yale Law is a good feather in your cap--do you have tenure yet?

-J.D. Humenay said...

Awesome! :)

I must admit your blog has really opened up my eyes to the issue of Child Traffiking, something I never considered before. It has us reconsidering International adoption for us, but we'll see what happens. However our family ends up becoming ours, it'll all work out as it's supposed to.

Jennifer Bao Yu "Precious Jade" Jue-Steuck said...

Congratulations! Your daughters must be so proud of you. All best wishes, Jennifer

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