Ask500

I would ask her to consider that as an option--not tell her to.

Boy, this is a tough one, and not because I have a problem with abortion. As a girlfriend my age said to me when she was pregnant at 38, "this is a young girls job". It is the age where you have the energy to keep up with small children. As you get older, you have more problems getting pregnant. Down's Syndrome is more likely to occur in older women, and a study was just released showing that autism is linked to older mothers as well.

Yet nowadays having children younger puts and keeps you out of the job market, and it is much harder for families to get along on only one paycheck. Harder to go back to college when there are little ones too. And if the pregnant teen has a partner that is not interested in getting married or having kids, chances are the parents will have to absorb the costs, and they may not be able to. Of course there is always adoption, but that can be traumatic for the mother as well as the grandparents. The one girl I know who got pregnant at 13 and gave her child up for adoption fell into depression, began to use drugs and hang out with gangs, and wound up dead, shot in the head at 17.

Sometimes I feel like we just need to scrap everything and start over again.

Her choice.

No. I would tell her I would go with her if she decided to have one, and hold her hand and comfort her. Assuming she needed comforting. Contrary to right-whinger mythology,most women who have abortions do not have huge guilt problems for the rest of their lives. A goodly number are relieved and happy that they haven't ruined their, and an innocent child's, lives.

How did you find out ? If she told me and asked for my advice I would give it to her -- in that case a lot depends upon the circumstances (for example -- big difference between 13 and 19).

But in the US and most other countries, its none of your business, its the female's choice.

I would let her decide