Two 
women’s stories

Lisa Miller was 17 and approaching her senior year of high school when she discovered that she was pregnant. It was 1978.

“I knew I did not want to have a child,” said Miller of Huntley.

At about eight weeks into her pregnancy, Miller chose to terminate it.

“I did not talk to my parents; I did not regret it,” she said.

Millie Haller was 18 and in the midst of her first year of college when she found out that she was carrying a child. It was 2010.

At about 12 weeks’ gestation, Haller, of McHenry, made the decision to carry her baby to term.

“I decided it was my responsibility,” Haller said. “I was not going to give up a life because of a decision I made.”

Before making her choice, Haller consulted a local pro-life counseling center, but not her parents.

Since 1973, pregnant women in the United States have had the right to choose whether to carry their child or to have an abortion.

Historically, women in Illinois also have had the right to move forward with either choice in privacy ­– without notifying a parent or legal guardian.

Although separated by decades and their views on whether abortion should be legal, Miller and Haller are united in one aspect of their pregnancies. Neither woman consulted a parent as she made her choice.

“At the time, if I would have been forced to talk to a parent, I probably would have rather killed myself,” Miller said during a phone interview. “I had had a next-door neighbor who, when she got pregnant, her mother forced her to have the child. I thought, ‘there is no way I am going to have anyone forcing me.’”

Were it enforced, however, a law on the books in Illinois since 1995 would prevent a young woman in Miller’s shoes, age 17 and younger, from making her choice without the involvement of a parent or guardian, unless a judge granted permission.

The law

The Parental Notice of Abortion Rights Act of 1995 requires that the guardians of a girl 17 or younger be notified at least 48 hours before their child has an abortion. Because it has been challenged at the federal and state court levels for almost two decades, however, the law has never been enforced.

The latest movement on the law came June 17, when an Illinois Appellate Court sent the law back to Cook County Circuit Court for trial to determine its fate.

The Parental Notice Act, and its proponents, state that unemancipated minors are not mature enough to make decisions about abortion without such guidance. Detractors, including the American Civil Liberties Union, insist that the law violates the women’s constitutional right to privacy and also puts some teens at risk of abuse.

“The blanket mandate of requiring every teen to acquire parental notice harms rather than advances the health and safety of young woman,” said Leah Bartelt, staff counsel for the ACLU of Illinois. “Specifically there are some who will be subject to physical and verbal abuse if they have to tell a family member.”

Provisions in the law that let some teens out of the requirement are not good enough, the ACLU argues. Abused teens might not seek emancipation or share information about abuse with a judge out of fear or shame, or might lack the know-how or access to seek emancipation, Bartelt said.

In testimony given to the Illinois Appellate Court this April, the ACLU claimed specifically that the law violates the privacy, equal protection, and gender equality clauses of the state’s constitution.

Perspective

The ACLU and supporters saw the court’s decision in June as a recognition of serious constitutional issues raised by the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act.

Delores Manny, president of McHenry County Citizens for Choice, hopes that the movement means the “plain unfair and unconstitutional” law will die.

“Pregnant minors can make all kinds of other decisions without involving a parent or being forced to go to court,” Manny said. “For example, a pregnant minor can decide to continue her pregnancy, give birth, consent to risky medical care including a Caesarean section, and can even place a child up for adoption – all without involving a parent.”

It does not make sense to Manny or those in her group how a minor could be able to decide to become a parent without counsel, but would not be allowed to independently decide not to become a parent. She hopes the circuit court will agree.

Others, including the Thomas Moore Society Pro-Life Center and more than a dozen state’s attorneys from across Illinois, hope that the recent court action means that the law is closer to enaction. They believe it will protect parental rights and the health and mental well-being of teens.

“Teens are not fully formed adults,” said Pat Griffin, co-director of 1st Way Life Center Pregnancy Support Services of Johnsburg and Harvard. “They see today, tomorrow and that’s about it. ... They are often confused and may not realize the gravity of their decision, that they have a new human being growing inside of them.”

“Non-political and pro-life,” the women who run 1st Way are among a contingent who believe that the law should be enforced. The center is run by an all-volunteer staff and supported by about 50 area churches. Its services include pregnancy testing, adoption counseling and parenting classes.

At 1st Way, all who seek pregnancy tests are encouraged to talk to a parent, but they are not forced to do so.

“We do respect confidentiality,” Griffin said. But 1st Way makes strong efforts to persuade young women to tell a guardian if they are pregnant. The agency’s volunteers go so far as to accompany a girl home to help out with the talk, if necessary.

For those like Miller, who fear that requiring a guardian to be notified will result in a forced continuation of pregnancy, Griffin notes that the opposite is possible, too.

“I’ve had mothers in here ranting and raving that it happened to them and, ‘I don’t want her having this baby like I did,’” she said. “It goes both ways.”

In addition, when some argue that telling a parent about a pregnancy will put teens at physical or emotional risk, Griffin sees an excuse to avoid confronting bigger issues.

“I had one girl in, she was 15 and we found out she was living with a brother and a friend and she was being abused,” Griffin said. “She was afraid to have a child. So we got her out of that situation and moved forward from there.”

If 1st Way discovers that a young woman is living in an abusive environment, Griffin said, it is policy to connect that woman with counseling services at Turning Point or other locations and, if necessary, to notify the police.

Getting personal

For Miller, Haller and women all over McHenry County and the state, the verbal battle around the Parental Notice Act is personal.

Miller was living in a “dysfunctional family” in a suburb of Mason City, Iowa, when she became pregnant.

“I hate to even go back to that, but there was emotional ... and alcohol abuse,” Miller said. “My father, he was the type where there was no encouragement. Everything I did was wrong, and if I said I wanted to do or accomplish something, his reaction would be, ‘Who do you think you are?’”

Miller said she knew that bringing a baby into her life at that time would not have helped her move forward or, she said, be fair to the child. Miller’s mother died when Miller was 14, and the strained relationship with her father was not conducive to discussing the subject.

So, after finding an ad for a clinic, Miller made her way to Wisconsin for an abortion. Miller said she has always felt that, although she was a minor at the time, she knew what she was doing.

A self-identified Christian, she admits to at times struggling to reconcile her beliefs about the human soul and her views about the “tissue” that develops in the first trimester. But she said, she has never regretted her decision.

She concedes that, as a teenager, she did not know all of the options that were available to pregnant women. For example, she drove herself several hours to a clinic in Wisconsin for her procedure when, she later learned, there was a Planned Parenthood near her home.

She does not, however, believe her naivete meant that she was unclear about her decision.

“I got the distinct feeling that if [the medical staff at the abortion clinic] thought that I didn’t understand what was going on, or if I was wishy-washy at all, they weren’t going to do it,” she said.

Haller wasn’t exactly close with her parents when she became pregnant. She waited until she was about four months along before she told them, and did so by leaving a note on her mother’s dresser.

“It wasn’t easy,” Haller said. “For young girls, I think some are scared and others just think that they are going to be with their boyfriends forever. But I think that you really need parent support.”

Haller’s mother, Donna Nilsson, remembers feeling shocked and disappointed at the news, but ultimately glad to know.

“I told her she had three options,” Nilsson said. “I told her whatever she decided, she would have to live with.”

Moving on

Today, Haller, her parents and blond-haired, blue-eyed Landen Penny live together in the Nilsson’s McHenry home, and Landen’s father, 24-year-old Matthew Penny, lives in Ostego, Mich.

Haller has since dropped out of college, but plans to go back to school when her smiley 10-month-old is a bit older.

“It’s not easy,” Haller said. “Landen is a really big responsibility, but I wouldn’t change anything in the world for him. He is my everything.”

Today Miller is married, has never had children, and lives happily with a husband part of the year in Huntley and part of the year in Arizona.