News
Featured Image
 Shutterstock.com

NEW YORK, June 12, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― A popular girls’ magazine has published an article explaining to a pregnant 16-year-old how she can abort her baby despite her parents’ pro-life values.

Teen Vogue, which often serves up titillating and harmful advice to its young audience, contains a regular sex-and-relationship column by Nona Willis Aronowitz. Most recently Aronowitz published a letter from a pregnant 16-year-old who wants to get an abortion without informing her pro-life parents.

The advice columnist, who is neither a doctor, nor a lawyer, nor a professional counsellor, told the girl that she had nothing to be ashamed of in being pregnant, not because parenthood is the natural outcome of sexual intercourse, but because “accidents happen.” Aronowitz also confused biological maturity with psychological immaturity by telling her readers, “it’s only logical that if teens are mature enough to become parents, they are mature enough to decide whether or not they want to give birth.”

“Having access to abortion should be your right, regardless of your parents’ beliefs,” Aronowitz added.

The writer acknowledged that the laws of many American states do not agree with her, and so advised the teen, if she did not live in one of the states that permits minors to get abortions without parental consent, to consider telling her parents.

Aronowitz then suggested that pro-life parents, including pro-life activists, are hypocrites who change their minds on abortion when their own daughters become pregnant.

“One thing I’ve learned while researching and reporting on these issues is that supposedly anti-abortion Americans often get abortions,” she wrote.

“They often help their children procure abortions. You know those activists who stand outside clinics holding signs adorned with Bible verses and pictures of fetuses? Even they sometimes get abortions.”

As evidence she quoted an Alabama abortionist who claimed to have performed abortions on pro-life witnesses.  

Aronowitz then suggested that if the girl was afraid that her parents might react with violence or kick her out of the house, she could consider the “judicial bypass procedure,” “a legal option in 36 states that would let you get an abortion without parental approval.” She suggested that a “clinic” would help the girl go through the legal procedure and also provided a link to a pro-abortion legal advice group. Aronowitz then provided a link to groups that will help pay for the abortion. She concluded her article with an attempt to normalize the deadly procedure by saying that one in four women will have had an abortion by the age of 45 and that everyone loves someone who has had an abortion.

This is only the latest in a series of Teen Vogue articles that shills for abortion. In 2017, it had published 63 abortion-positive articles by the end of February.

In 2017, the UK’s Guardian newspaper interviewed the magazine’s editorial staff about their publication’s shift from a focus on clothing and make-up to left-wing politics. Editor Elaine Welteroth described Teen Vogue’s audience as “woke,” a current slang buzzword indicating opposition to perceived social injustices and sympathetic interest in feminism and identity politics.    

“This is somebody who is sophisticated, conscious,” Welteroth said of her average reader. “We say ‘woke’ here. We’re a woke brand, and our readers are woke, too.”

But despite Welteroth’s pride in capturing part of what she called the “sweet spot” of the 18-24 year old market, the online magazine is still marketed to teens.

In May 2019, Aronowitz devoted her advice column to answering a question about when it’s “safe” to send naked photos to a romantic partner (“if you’ve done your due diligence, the feelings are mutual, you feel comfortable with the person, and trust them to guard your nudes with their life”), while acknowleding, “if you’re under a certain age, sending sexy selfies can count as distributing child pornography, and can even be considered a felony in some states.” In 2017, it published an article on “thoughtful” gifts to give to a friend who’s just had an abortion. Later that year, it pushed an anal sex tutorital.

In response to the latter article, “Activist Mommy” Elizabeth Johnston publicly burned a copy of the magazine, and evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham, called upon parents and grandparents not to allow this “kind of trash [to] be pawned off on our children.”