Justice for Girls: On the Provision of Abortion as Adequate Care

When the US Supreme Court rejected the constitutional right to abortion care, several US states enacted bans. This legal change exposed critical moral questions about pregnancy in childhood: What do adults owe to an impregnated girl? This article shows that both opponents of abortion and defenders of women’s rights make a mistake by overlooking that a girl is a child. Her caregivers should view her impregnation as a malady and take steps to terminate it. This article presents a novel analysis of a previously unnamed injustice—antigirlism—to make sense of the mistreatment that girls endure in reproductive care.